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HOW TO BE RIGOROUS WITH SCENARIO PLANNING

Five Conditions and the Tools to Ensure Rigor
Scenarios: Use and Abuse Confusion of Scenarios and Strategies The Nail and the Hammer Tools to Reduce Inconsistencies and Collective Biases

Scenario Planning: An Integrated Approach
The French School and la Prospective From Five Resources to the Competence Tree Origins and Definitions of the ScenarioMethod Our Rediscovery ofMorphological Analysis Scenario Method and Strategic Planning Scenarios as Strategic Management Tools Correct Use ofScenarios: the ElfExample Examples ofSpecific Tool Combinations

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CREATING FUTURES

Five Conditions and the Tools to Ensure Rigor
More and more scenario planning functions as a collective thinking exercise or the mobilization of many minds whenthe winds of change blow through a company's strategic environment. It is also being successfully applied to regional organizations and local groups. The popularity, appropriation and increased use of scenario building means t h a t specialists no longer monopolize the techniques. Sadly, however, there has been a decrease in methodological know-how and rigor. The situation appears all the worsegiven the sad state of affairs in the United States where rational or formalistic techniques have been passed over for essentially intuitive approaches. Although commercially successful, these fuzzy approaches do not justify the meandering and detours involved. In this sense, ifthere is indeed a rationale to the procedure adopted by a group (Simon, 1982), a futures-thinking exercise must remainheuristic as opposed to either an algorithmic or a guesstimate approach. Ofcourse that does not preclude the use ofrigorous techniques when appropriate. This is the perspective ofscenario building as "the art of the long view" to borrow Peter Schwartz' title (1991). Despite the fine quality of Schwartz' book, not very many people have a mind as brilliant as his or the ability to execute this fine artwithout any method or technique. The philosophy and steps presented in his approach come close to ours but his lack oftechnique makes "the art of the long view", difficult to appropriate or reproduce. This general loss of rationality coincides with a loss of memory to the point where words and names are forgotten. Too many would-be futurists and budding consultants dive headfirst into scenarioplanning with no background knowledge. Little wonder they look surprised, even bewildered, when someone mentions morphological analysis or probabilization. At the end of the 1980s, French economist Jacques Lesourne, (then at the EDF, France's national power utility) sent out an important message. He called for more research in the field ofscenario planning. Then, just as now, people tended to confusesimple and simplistic tools. The times have not changed. Nevertheless the scenario method, as designed twenty years ago, remains useful because it imposes a minimum of intellectual rigor through the qualitative and quantitative analysis of prevailing trends and actors' strategies. Moreover it highlights seeds ofchange, conflict and tension, and allows for the construction ofcomplete, coherentscenarios.

Scenarios: Use and Abuse
Ifyou had a penny for each time you used the word scenario, you could still get rich soon since the word remains fashionable. Unfortunately its scientific nuance in futures-thinking exercises has been diluted.

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Given the context, two questions must be asked: 1) Does simply baptizing as scenario anycombination of hypotheses make an analysis, even the most convincing analysis, credible in terms of managerial science? 2) Is it absolutely necessary to draft full, detailed scenarios in the planning process? The answer is no\ "No!" on both counts because scenarios and planning are not synonymous. A scenario is not a future reality but a way offoreseeing the future, thus throwing light on the present in...