Welcome to a host of foresight-based group exercises. These activities, which are the piecemeal elements of Futurecasting workshops are designed to unify participants around common goals identified through a collaborative process.
The purpose of this activity is to develop a self-managed implementation plan. Participants are ready to join with others who share a common interest and make a public commitment to work toward team goals.
This activity provides a logical structure for analyzing options. It is a catalyst for robust discussion of strategic alternatives. Use it to review and appraise the variety of design ideas you have generated. It will also help participants begin to visualize what the future design could look like.
This activity offers participants the chance to assign their personal ‘value’ to each design idea, resulting in a prioritized list that reflects the group’s shared values. The intention is to choose the best potential path forward from an array of identified opportunities.
The purpose of this activity is to discover and confirm common ground among all participants regarding elements of an ideal future we all want. The goal is to reach agreement on those things that we are ready, able, and willing to do now without negotiation or needing approval from a higher authority.
This activity is intended to stimulate forward thinking about uses and design of various physical spaces. Its purpose is to help challenge current assumptions and explore new mental models in preparation for planning new or re-imagining existing facilities. As a group activity, it will help build a shared understanding of the best use of spaces.
Organizations tend to be more successful in looking ahead five, ten, or twenty years when they first look backward an equivalent number of years. This activity is designed to help leaders map changes in their organization’s past, to gain wisdom and momentum to plan forward.
The purpose of the futures wheel activity is to gain fresh perspective by engaging in ‘what if’ thinking that moves us out from our normal ways of seeing things. This exercise seeks to illustrate that unanticipated change can radically alter the environment, leaving organizations unprepared and vulnerable to failure.
The objective of the FutureScape activity is to lead a group to the creative edge by exploring all the external trends that currently impact the topic of concern. This is an interactive experience that captures and builds on the rich diversity of participants, reflecting the collective consciousness of this group at this time.
This activity helps participants begin to imagine a better future for your community and to internalize a vision that will motivate them to act toward its implementation. Clear images of an improved future tend to prompt us to make unconscious choices and commitments that bring it into reality.
This activity adds substance to your vision by translating your preferable future into concrete ideas. ‘Imagine’ is an organizing activity to provide structure for generating a wide array of ideas. It is a blend of creative imagination and the practical considerations of commercial construction.
Incasting is a foresight technique for elaborating preset scenarios. It pushes participants to consider how their life would change in a variety of alternative possible futures. This exercise asks people to accept the possibility that the future may be very different in many ways.
The purpose of this activity is to assess the robustness of strategy options. You will see how they stand up under a wide range of conditions representative of possible futures.
The purpose of this activity is to stimulate robust small group conversations about faith in the future. The primary intention is to interrupt normal patterns of thinking in order to consider how we might apply scripture and faith to formidable challenges that may await us just beyond the horizon.
Strategy is a high-level statement of organizational direction. At this point, we move from strategy to tactics. Strategy is what we will do. Tactics define how we will accomplish strategy. The objective is to build consensus and a teamwork approach to implementing the strategy.
The purpose of this activity is to identify several diverse strategies that are in alignment with the ideal future of this organization and show promise of helping fulfill it.
Activities
