Demystifying the Future with Foresight Scouts®
Demystifying the Future with Foresight Scouts®
Stay several steps ahead of the market with our essential foresight tools
October 4, 2021
WHAT IS STRATEGIC FORESIGHT?
Most organizations spend their time pouring over daily, weekly, and quarterly reports to leverage past metrics for future success. When planning for the future, how many organizations actually spend time looking forward by investing in predictive analytics, future trend analysis, and emerging technologies? If you want to work from a place of knowledge in today’s fluctuating marketplace, you’ll need to balance historical data with strategic foresight.
Attempting to forecast the future may seem daunting or even impossible. But strategic foresight is a planning-oriented discipline that provides structured methods and tools for navigating unidentified unknowns. Rather than rely on gut feelings, organizations can confidently lean into the unknowns and find success while avoiding setbacks.
The exercise of foresight has an immense impact on business outcomes. Business experts Rohrbeck and Kum developed a model in 2018 that assesses the “future preparedness” (FP) of a firm. When comparing future-prepared firms to average firms, they found that the former group outperformed the latter by a 33% higher profitability and a 200% higher growth. Here at Bridge, we’ve found the make-up of FP to be highly correlated to the scientific makeup of foresight.
YOUR DEFENSE AGAINST DISRUPTION
The marketplace is unpredictable and rife with disruptors like AI, data, workplace expectations, and automation. These unexplored, unanticipated, and external factors push organizations and put leaders on the defense. Foresight puts you in the driver’s seat. It starts by considering the present: what are the current trends, drivers of change, wildcards, and patterns of change and how are they relevant to your organization? Use the resulting data and insights to determine all the potential alternative futures of your organization. Choosing your preferred future will inform the strategic plans and innovation portfolios you need to make that future a reality.
Foresight is not a new practice—it is only now gaining in popularity due to increases in marketplace volatility. Shell, for example, has been utilizing scenario planning, scenario scaffolding, and weak signal analysis for many years and has obviously seen great success as a result. As these tools become more mainstream, leaders must become proficient at both looking backwards and forwards to proactively address emerging trends.
FORESIGHT SCOUTS®
Foresight Scouts® was born out of a conversation Bridge Innovate CEO and Strategy Lead Jenny Whitener had with the CEO of a 6BN manufacturing company years ago. Jenny wanted to know what kept him up at night and he shared that his greatest concern was the future. The company found themselves in a constant state of disruption, being hit hard and fast by unpredictable and unknown factors.
Bridge has since spent two years looking at the best and most robust tools from both academia and consultancies addressing foresight analysis. NYU Professor Amy Webb states that “Myriad factors and inputs create the constellation of change that becomes our future... which tells us that you have to broaden your thinking, or you will be left behind.” Because trends must be looked at across multiple spectrums to properly inform future strategies, we mobilized Foresight Scouts®.
Foresight Scouts® is made up of three phases:
Phase 1: Scan Phase 1 is a foresight scanning analysis. For example, we are currently gearing up to launch a cohort focusing on automation, the acceleration of digital, and AI, pulling together leaders from various businesses to explore these trends and their implications.
Phase 2: Focus Phase 2 helps organizations take their initial trend analysis and begin to focus it in to create future scenario models and designs of strategy innovation that addresses a future state with these trends.
Phase 3: Act Phase 3 refines the strategic plan to improve future readiness then implements the plan based on the future trends analysis. The final phase ends by institutionalizing strategic foresight into your organization.
Our team at Bridge has collected all of our findings on strategic foresight together in an accessible and collaborative digital platform called Sprintbase®. Sprintbase organizes cohort findings, allowing all members to rapidly learn from one another—sharing and analyzing trends. Upon completing Foresight Scouts®, participants will add to their tool belts the Futures Wheel, a critical-thinking resource, a narrative Foresight Brief, and a Video Pitch.
TAKEAWAYS
A greater understanding of strategic foresight can manifest itself in several different ways within a company. We have had organizations join the sessions in order to grow their leadership capability. We have had organizations take part before launching their own Foresight Scouts® program within their own business. And we have seen organizations use Foresight Scouts® in direct connection to innovation analysis, allowing them to create a much bolder outcome.
We are excited to be making preparations for our upcoming cohort beginning October 12, 2021. Program participants will not only gain a better understanding of strategic foresight, but will also get access to a one year Sprintbase subscription to continue their future trend mining. Sign up for our next Foresight Scouts® cohort!
We launched our Inspire Series of free 30-minute webinars as a way to stay connected over the pandemic. It turns out we should have been doing them all along. With over 50 webinars in the books and over 2,200 total registrants, we think we’ll keep them around. Experience the power of collective wisdom: sign up for our next webinar.