Possible Futures
Using and applying the Futures Cone
In highly fluid environments, such as those that we are in now, it is of-course critical for businesses of all types to maintain a high level of agility and adaptability. But it is also important to have a point of view on the future, even if that view is likely to change in response to new contexts. In spite of what some futurists would have you believe the future is rarely that predictable, but that shouldn’t stop us from having a vision or continually exploring potential future scenarios.
Jeff Bezos famously said once that it is as important to pay attention to what doesn’t change (like customer demand around low prices, vast selection, fast delivery), as it is to what does change (perhaps the way in you deliver to those customer demands). In fact the first question is arguably the more interesting one, and certainly one that you can build a business around.
Yet as well as delivering the fundamentals in the best way possible we should always be horizon scanning and reimagining possibilities if we are not to stagnate or become fragile through inaction and inflexibility. The Futures Cone is an excellent way of thinking about and visualising the future and can be used to not only to envisage a different future but also to challenge our current assumptions and help us to make smarter decisions today. The tool sets out a range of future scenarios, categorising them into projected, probable, plausible, possible and even preposterous. I’ve written about the Futures Cone before, but I particularly liked Mike Baxter’s post (from which the visual above is borrowed) on how to apply it:
Projected futures are business as usual, and what will happen if nothing changes.
Probable futures may take account of current trends that we know now, and are still likely to happen. How much we plan for these will depend on the probability of them happening and how much we believe that what we know now will shape the future. We might even include ‘preferable futures’ here, which is what we’d like to see happen.
Plausible futures are less probable, but may still happen based on what we currently know. As Mike says, we likely don’t need elaborate plans for plausible futures, but we do need to be vigilant to notice when it does become more probable.
Possible futures are not currently seen as probable or plausible, but a significant change in circumstances could still result in them happening. Only the lowest fidelity of planning is really required here, but it can be really useful to identify possible futures that might stretch our thinking in a positive way, or impact us negatively in momentous ways.
Preposterous futures are improbable. implausible and currently impossible so may easily be dismissed, but even these can be useful in provoking truly different thinking in planning sessions.
It can be useful to take preposterous future scenarios and consider what would need to change in order for them to become possible? And it can be helpful to think about possible futures and examine what would need to happen in order to make them plausible. And to consider plausible futures and consider how to make them probable.
This is a fantastic way to stretch your thinking. But alongside appreciating the full range of scenarios , it’s also critical to acknowledge how the fidelity of planning needs to increase the closer we get to probable and projected. And to note the different types of reasoning and thinking that we require to map future scenarios well. We can extrapolate from specific observations or examples (inductive reasoning), or work back from general observations using logic (deductive thinking), or even work from incomplete observations to form our best prediction (abductive reasoning). Whatever tools we use, it is worth remembering the value of not only logic and interpretation, but also a quality that is highly undervalued in business —the power of imagination.
For more like this, you can order your copy of Building the Agile Business Through Digital Transformation and the new book from Neil Perkin, Agile Transformation: Structures, Processes and Mindsets for the Digital Age. I’m also now blogging over on my own site so do join me there
