Houston Strategic Foresight MS, is that “foresight is anything we do prior to strategic planning.” This isn’t a perfect definition, as strategy is also a critical part of foresight, but it is a great introduction to the need for well designed and rewarded foresight practice. One great elevator-pitch definition of foresight, taught to me by Peter Bishop, past director of the U. We can simplify the Six Psinto Four Skills, Learning, Anticipation, Innovation, and Strategy, using words that are common to strategic management. When strategy is subject to cognitively, skill, and experience-diverse critique, this order is also a self-improving cycle. Both of these are essential features of strategy. The more we understand both, the more equipped we are for the second conflict in foresight work, between advantage thinking ( Preferred futures) and defensive thinking ( Preventable futures). Both a common, constraining future, and a diverse set of unpredictable futures, exist for all complex systems, at the same time. The middle two types, the Probable future and Possible futures, are the first conflict in foresight work. The first two thinking types, the Past and Present, are preparation for future thinking. Strategy (Preferred and Preventable futures).Learning (the Past and Present – “Preparation”).Here are Six Key Thinking Types (the Six Ps) in Strategic Foresight: When we use these consciously, and ask how to balance them against each other for the problem at hand, we have the potential to generate the best strategy we can. The some of these thinking types can be grouped together, giving us Four Foresight Skills. The combination of successful foresightand successful action skillswill be called adaptive foresight in this Guide.Īs we’ll now see, there are six thinking types that all professionals use to generate strategic foresight. It won’t actually make an entity adaptive unless it is also coupled to successful action. We can define strategic foresight as future thinking that has the potential (the capacity) to make an entity (individual, team, organization, etc.) more adaptive, or successful. This is an exciting time for foresight practice, as our leading professional organizations are all searching for new and more inclusive definitions of our field. Our field must recognize all the parts of itself as it grows up, so we can better share and compare our models and methods, and do better collaborative work on foresight problems. One key to professionalizing the foresight field is finding better definitions of what strategic foresight work actually is, and who engages in it. The Six Ps of Strategic Foresight – Using the Core Thinking Types Well
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