- Invite participants who have knowledge of, or are affected by, the proposal or issue of interest.
- Invite participants to identify the underlying paradigms or unwritten laws of change; trends or driving forces and collect into general categories (economy, socio/political, etcetera); and wildcards or uncertainties.
- Consider how these might affect a situation, either singly or in combination, using these steps:
- Review the big picture
- Review general approaches to future studies
- Identify what you know and what you don't know
- Select possible paradigm shifts and use them as an overall guide
- Cluster trends and see which driving forces are most relevant to your scenario
- Create alternative scenarios (similar to alternate scenes in a play) by mixing wildcards with trends and driving forces; keep the number of scenarios small (four is ideal because it avoids the 'either' 'or' choice of two, and the good/bad/medium choice of three).
- Write a brief report that states assumptions and future framework; provides observations and conclusions; gives a range of possibiltiies, and focuses on the next steps coming out of this study. Each scenario should be about one page.