Future Scenarios | Post-Covid-19: How we will live and work in the future?
“Most leaders’ thinking is based on the past, not the future.”
-Rafael Ramirez, Oxford University
We think of the immediate future all the time. What am I going to eat for lunch? Where are we going this weekend? The timeframe of these considerations is short. More difficult to envision is what will the world look like in 20 or 30 years. Considering the future is paradox. It has not taken place yet, it is tangled up in much complexity considering the interconnected nature of challenges we are facing, it has low controllability, yet harbors only one certainty – the uncertainty.
The Oxford Scenarios Programme calls out TUNA conditions: Turbulence, Uncertainty, Novelty, Ambiguity, which are always present, disruptive, and command mixed emotions ranging from excitement and imagination to worry and fear. Embracing TUNA and stretching our comfort zone is necessary in order to create alternative maps of the future.
Future scenarios are not predictive, they are not used as forecasting tools, they are not based on data and models to calculate risk. These elements depend on past information to create predictive models that may inform the future and what will happen with some certainty.
Future Scenarios consider what may be plausible, envision alternate futures that may never happen in its entirety. However, they can provide insights to organizations and communities and inform the positioning of their strategies, services and products in case elements of these futures would become a reality. The consideration of plausible futures allows a stronger ability to innovate and respond faster and more nimbly to potential disruptions in the future.
It starts with a question –
Post-COVID-19: How will we live and work in the future?
