Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight - Softcover

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9780978931704: Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight

Softcover

ISBN 10: 097893170X ISBN 13: 9780978931704

Publisher: Social Technologies, 2007

Thinking about the Future distills the expertise of three dozen senior foresight professionals into a set of essential guidelines for carrying out successful strategic foresight. Presented in a highly scannable yet personable style, each guideline includes an explanation and rationale, key steps, a case example, and resources for further study. The 115 guidelines are organized into six sequential categories that mirror the phases of a strategic foresight activity, namely Framing, Scanning, Forecasting, Visioning, Planning, and Acting. Executives will find both the guidelines and the framework invaluable for understanding what it takes to successfully explore the future, while analysts who actively carry out strategic foresight projects will find the book an indispensable reference that they turn to again and again.

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About the Author:

Dr. Andy Hines is Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator with the University of Houston Graduate Program in Foresight and is also speaking, workshopping, and consulting through his firm Hinesight. His 20 plus years of professional futurist experience includes a decade s experience working inside first the Kellogg Company and later Dow Chemical, and consulting work with Coates &Jarratt, Inc. and Social Technologies. His books include Teaching about the Future, ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape, Thinking about the Future, 2025: Science and Technology Reshapes US and Global Society, and he recently earned his PhD on The Role of an Organizational Futurist in Integrating Foresight into Organizations.

There has perhaps never been a time in human history where strategic foresight is more needed. Whether for business, government, education, nonprofits, or even individuals, the ability to--as Richard Slaughter suggests in the preface--"create and sustain a variety of high-quality forward views and to apply the emerging insights in useful ways" is at a premium. Yet precious little guidance is available on the best ways to do this. This book is not an explicit methodology text, but rather suggests what executives and analysts should be thinking about and doing when contemplating or performing activities involving strategic foresight. It aims at communicating the collective wisdom of three dozen expert contributors for attaining excellence in strategic foresight. Thus, its primary goal is to provide readers with clear and useful guidance regarding how best to practice strategic foresight.

This guidance is presented in the form of guidelines that represent a distillation of best practice. The presentation style is brief and to the point--designed to provide essential, need-to-know information that can be immediately put into practice. We believe that analysts and organizations that follow these guidelines will be more effective than those that do not.

Many practicing analysts today have little experience or formal training in strategic foresight. This work addresses that gap by cataloging the best guidelines for successfully applying strategic foresight, offered by professionals in the field today. It is intended both for those new to strategic foresight who would benefit from a reference guide, and for more experienced practitioners who will be able to pick out ideas to refine and improve their practices. As organizations become more efficient, payrolls are shrinking and more analysts are being tasked with activities that require strategic foresight. At the same time, analysts find themselves with few places to turn for readily available and applicable guides on how to do it. Providing that guidance is the primary aim of this book.

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