Responses

Responses is a method to help teams discuss which Issues or already created scenarios are most likely, desirable and supported.

Uses of the method

Informs the next stage of strategy development after scenarios have been created from the perspective of societal, organizational and personal desires

Benefits

Aids understanding of participants choices among scenarios
May identify more strategic questions and challenges
Can be used in conjunction with other methods
Fast to complete

Disadvantages

Doesn't directly identify opportunity and threat options in each scenario
Relies on feelings rather than analysis

Steps to complete

Set up a report containing existing scenarios or Issues
Show participants the scenarios or Issues and explain the rational but not your feelings. Invite discussion. Capture thoughts about likes and dislikes of each scenario or Issue in the Forum either individually or through the team leader's login. Summarize the discussion with a few key points for consideration in the next step
Invite participants to visit each scenario or Issue once comfortable with each and to complete the associated Plausibility indicators including their rating, weighting and confidence level and to save their results
Let participants know that their votes are indicators and not decisions based on facts
Show and discuss the results either as an Indicator chart or as a Spider chart by clicking the Average button
Capture unique insight into new ways of seeing that can be utilized by the organization in the Forum
What conclusions can we draw from the exercise(s)? Capture ideas in the Forum
- How might the future be different?
- How does A affect B?
- What is likely to remain the same or change significantly?
- What are the likely outcomes?
- What and who will likely shape our future?
- Where could we be most affected by change?
- What might we do about it?
- What don't we know that we need to know?
- What should we do now, today?
- Why do we care?
- When should we aim to meet on this?
Finish by noting your next steps in the Forum. Next steps could include a further round of iteration, a recommendation on how to get the answers or use of other research and methods to create more vantage points on the issue.

Collaboration
This method and your response can be shared with other members or kept private using the 'Privacy' field and through the 'Tag', 'Report' and 'Forum' functionalities. Use 'Tag' and/or 'Report' to aggregate your analyzes, or add a 'Forum' to ask others where they agree/disagree and encourage them to make their own analysis from their unique vantage point.

Click the 'Invite tab to send invitations to other members or non-members (colleagues, external experts etc.) to ask for their input. You can whether or not you want anonymous responses. These can be viewed and exported within the Responses tab.

Further reference
Plausibility Matrix: Foresight, Horizon Scanning Centre

Contact us
Even with all the advice and tools we have provided here starting a foresight project from scratch can be a daunting prospect to a beginner. Let us know if you need help with this method or want a group facilitation exercise or full project or program carrying out by us. We promise to leave behind more internal knowledgeable people who can expand your initiative for better organizational performance.

Are there other enhancements or new methods you would like to see here? Let us know and we will do our best to respond with a solution quickly.

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Responses

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