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Strategic Futuring

Casting a Future Vision / Crafting a Future Strategy

Details

Role: Strategy

Focus: Future Growth

Outputs: Future Growth Strategy

Strategic Futuring is about taking all of the foresights developed through proper Strategic Foresights work, and then acting on them.

More specifically, it is about using those foresights to explore a broad range of plausible future scenarios that could potentially play out, and then – using the powers and influences of the organization – pursuing very specific future strategies – aligned with very clear future visions – to push the future into the direction the organization wants it to go.

All of this is so that – ultimately – the organization can realize its ‘ideal and preferred future’ at various points throughout the future.
As can be appreciated from this, Strategic Futuring inherently means being extremely proactive and preemptive in one's treatment of the future.

Indeed, the world's most progressive organizations do not simply wait around to see what the future will bring them.   Rather, instead, they are actively ‘out there’ – working very hard to shape and drive the future to become precisely what they want it to be.   This is why we call it “future shaping.”

But as a true market driver, your organization's task is not simply to shape its future, but rather to truly own that future – for the sake of its long term success deep into the future.

Our Strategic Futuring work is divided into two sequential stages.
—
Visioning | Strategizing
Visioning
The purpose of Visioning is to be able to cast a series of new visions for the organization to embrace and pursue – each around a specific Strategic Domain of significance.

To undertake Visioning, our Visionaries – working together with select members of your organization – engage in a very specific set of tasks aimed at shaping and casting these new visions.

These new visions then serve as the bases for a broad range of new strategies and strategic initiatives – defined by our Strategists – that the organization is to pursue — so that it can, in fact, realize the new visions.

To carry out our Visioning work, we employ a very specific set of tools and practices.
These include the following:
  • The Futures Cone
  • Predict Next Year's Headlines
  • Long Range Forecasts
  • Future Storytelling
  • Guided Future Visioning
Strategizing — aka Strategy Formation
The purpose of Strategizing is to develop powerful new growth strategies for your organization to pursue — each around a specific Strategic Domain of significance.

To undertake Strategizing, our Strategists engage in a very specific set of tasks aimed at crafting these new strategies and their initiatives.

As a part of this, and based on the Future Visions previously cast in the Visioning stage, certain specific Goals are now established, and beyond those certain specific strategies now defined — all of which ultimately culminate in a range of Strategic Initiatives the organization will undertake so that it can in fact bring these strategies to life and achieve the visions cast.

To carry out our Strategizing work, we employ a very specific set of tools and practices.
These include the following:
  • The Future Evolution Cone
  • Strategy Decision Matrix
  • Backcasting
  • Morphological Analysis
  • Scenario-Based Strategy Development
  • Stress Testing
To learn more about any of these practices and their associated methods, drop us a line… we'll be happy to explain them in complete detail.
The outcome of our Strategic Futuring work
The outcome, and thus deliverable, of our futuring work is the development and documentation of a comprehensive new Future Growth Strategy.

This strategy will prescribe for the organization the following items
(to varying levels of detail, depending on the need):

  • The prescribed Growth Directions.
    This includes the Strategic Domains we've collectively defined, a clear and compelling Future Vision for each such Domain, and unique Goals for each Domain over each of the respective strategic horizons (short, medium, and long term).

  • A collection of well-defined Initiatives for each Domain / Horizon combination.
    This includes:
    1. Certain very definitive initiatives
      (those having relatively foreseeable paths to success);
    2. Certain exploratory initiatives
      (those requiring more exploration, experimentation, and learning);
    3. The space for any number of bottom-up initiatives arising out of opportunities being identified by the organization's broader ecosystem.
This is all formally documented in a final Future Strategy Report.

The only true basis for proactively Shaping The Future
Strategic Futuring is the only truly sound basis for being able to craft and build out comprehensive new future-focused innovation-driven growth strategies — in particular the type capable of empowering your organization to proactively and preemptively shape and own its future in an intelligent and successful manner.

As such, Strategic Futuring provides the basis for not only definitive initiatives, but also for exploratory initiatives — the areas in which your organization will need to explore and experiment so that it can ‘poke & prod’ its way into the future and ultimately uncover the right paths toward future ownership.

All other approaches — and in particular traditional linear strategic planning, with its gross over-reliance on linear-assumption-based planning methods (usually erroneous assumptions) — simply cannot and will not permit an organization to experiment, learn, grow, and adapt in a way that positions it to truly lead in the future.   Only Strategic Futuring can do that.

Organizations who understand this – and who aspire to be the true driving and shaping forces in their markets – therefore actively and aggressively pursue Strategic Futuring.   They stand out as such forces, and position themselves for long-term domination.

Drop us a line to learn more about this work.
Understand the Future
Learn how to think properly about the future
Develop a Future Fit Mindset
Weave this mindset deeply into your organization
Own Your Destiny
Show your organization how to own its future
Activate Powerful Strategies
Pursue long term strategies with deep impact
Develop Innovation Capabilities
Develop the capacity to be the innovation pacesetter
Dominate Your Markets
Become the real driving force in your markets
Reinvent Your Culture
Cultivate a new culture that can go the distance
Become a Digital Powerhouse
Go deep on the journey of digital transformation
Become an Iconic Organization
Achieve outcomes & results that legends are made of

Engage Us

Your challenges are complex.   Working with us shouldn't be.   We work hard to explain and simplify each step along our collective journey… what we'll be doing, how undertaking that step will work, how long each step or phase is expected to take, and the mechanisms by which each step or phase will succeed in achieving your organization's unique goals and aspirations.

At the end of the day, we want to ensure you're confident in our journey ahead — and that our work will deliver for your organization the outcomes and results – and impacts – needed for it to be able to own and shape its future.   That's why we're here.

01. Conversation
Real change starts with a conversation.   Here, we sit and talk with you about your organization and its needs & aspirations going forward.   This is a no-judgment / high-aspiration zone – and so we're completely open and honest here… nothing's off the table… everything is fair game.   We want to know the whole story… where you've been, where you presently are, and where it is you want to go.   That gets us to Step 2.
02. Proposal
Understanding both your present situation and your future aspirations, we prepare for you a Proposal detailing exactly what course of action we intend to undertake with your organization – in this case that revolving around Strategic Futuring.   Documenting this plan of action and its expected outcomes puts us all on the same page with respect to our collective gameplan and its goalposts. That gets us to Step 3.
03. Execution
At the agreed-upon date, we engage with your organization and begin working together to execute the plan.   This requires a firm commitment from both sides to do all the hard work needed to achieve success.   Together, we work the plan methodically and systematically — checking in at numerous points to ensure that our efforts are in fact achieving their intended outcomes and results (if not, we circle back and either reinforce an effort and adjust the plan – always in tune with how your organization is responding).   Our goal is to fully achieve the engagement's expected outcomes, results, and impacts.
04. Follow Up
Because not all outcomes and results can be known immediately, we follow up with you over the course of several months – even years if need be – to ensure your organization is remaining on course with our interventions and in fact achieving its intended outcomes and results.   In most cases it will be.   But if for some reason it's not, then we'll still be here to help it get back – and remain – on track — ensuring that it continues achieving the needed outcomes, results, and impacts over the long run.

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