How to Analyze Scenarios (Inside the Futurist’s Mind)

In this video, I walk you through the Image Analysis template I built to compare future scenario works and clarify visions of the future.

Drawing on Fred Polak’s classic The Image of the Future and Wendy Schultz’s work on Images of the Future, we’ll go step‑by‑step through nine elements of a well‑crafted guiding image. You’ll see how to read future‑oriented work with sharper, more critical eyes.

If you’re a futurist, researcher, or just someone trying to make sense of competing visions of what comes next, this template will help you sort signal from noise. By the end, you’ll have a practical way to compare different images of the future and start crafting your own.

What you’ll learn in this video:

-How to use a nine‑part Image Analysis template to evaluate guiding images of the future

-Why “author,” “time horizon,” and “scope” matter more than most people think

-How key drivers and key ideas shape different images of post‑capitalist futures

-How values, emotions, and personal implications give an image real traction

-Why a plausible pathway is more important than a detailed 10‑point plan

Check out my other related video on guiding images here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_pdtP3SQKY

If this kind of futures thinking is useful to your work, hit subscribe and turn on notifications for more videos on foresight methods, images of the future, and life after capitalism. Share this with a colleague or student who’s wrestling with competing visions of what comes next. Looking forward! — Andy Hines

About Andy Hines

Dr. Andy Hines is Program Coordinator at the University of Houston’s Graduate Program in Foresight, bringing together the experience he earned as an organizational, consulting, and academic futurist. He is also speaking, workshopping, and consulting through his firm Hinesight.

Before that, he was Managing Director of Social Technologies/Innovaro, and served as an Adjunct Professor with the university since 2004. Hines enjoyed earlier careers as a consulting and organizational futurist. He was a partner with Coates & Jarratt, Inc., a think tank and consulting firm that specialized in the study of the future. He was also Futurist & Senior Ideation Leader at Dow Chemical with a mission of using futures tools and knowledge to turn ideas into new business opportunities. Before that, Hines established and ran the Global Trends Program for the Kellogg Company.

Hines is motivated by a professional hunger to make foresight practical and useful, and he believes that foresight can help deliver the insight that is so needed in today’s organizations and the world. His goal, he says, is to infect as many change agents as possible with this message. Thus, he has honed a skill set designed to make foresight more actionable in organizations.

In this pursuit, he has authored five books: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape (No Limits Publishing, 2011); Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (Social Technologies, 2007); 2025: Science and Technology Reshapes US and Global Society (Oak Hill, 1997); and Managing Your Future as an Association (ASAE, 1994) and has another in the hands of publishers: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education. He has also authored dozens of articles, speeches, and workshops, including the 2003 Emerald Literati Awards’ Outstanding Paper accolade for best article published in Foresight for “An Audit for Organizational Futurists” and the 2008 award for “Scenarios: The State of the Art.” He has appeared on several radio and television programs, PBS Houston, KRIV-26 News, and the CBS “Early Show.” He also co-founded and is former Chair of the Association of Professional Futurists.

About Andy Hines

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