Scenario Planning

Scenarios at the Forum
What are scenarios?
What value do the Forum scenarios bring?
How are the scenarios developed at the Forum?
Why is the Forum a good place for scenario development?
Who are we?

What are scenarios?
Scenarios are stories about the future. They are not attempts to predict the future; rather, they aim to sketch the boundaries of the plausible. They are built on a thorough analysis of factors – social, political, economic, environmental, technological – that could shape the future environment of a given business, region or policy area. They explore three or four diverse eventualities of how the world might look if the most uncertain and important drivers unfold in different ways.
Good scenarios are not just dry, analytical descriptions of possible future outcomes: while rigorously constructed, they should also be creative and compelling enough to engage the imagination. They challenge assumptions, raise awareness of underlying factors and stimulate participants into fresh thinking about what could happen and what it would mean for them. They offer both a new perspective on events and a framework for constructive discussions.

What value do the Forum scenarios bring?
As well as providing its partners with tools to improve their strategic decision-making, the Forum develops scenarios as part of its commitment to improving the state of the world. The decisions we make today create tomorrow, and those decisions can be influenced by deepening insight into the complex question of what kind of future each decision would help to define.
In particular, scenario-building provides a non-threatening context in which to bring together diverse stakeholders with conflicting worldviews and to establish a common language. This in turn can translate into a shared sense of vision, and can help to initiate multi-stakeholder actions aimed at bringing into existence the kind of future that participants consider desirable.

How are the scenarios developed in the Forum?
At the World Economic Forum, scenarios are developed by conducting open-ended interviews and discussions to gather a broad range of perspectives, and convening a series of multi-stakeholder workshops bringing together leaders in business, society, government and academia. The scenarios are the joint creation of those who took part in the project and go beyond the assumptions and perspectives of any individual, interest group or organisation.

Why is the Forum a good place for scenario development?
Scenarios are more robust when their development involves a diverse range of stakeholders. As an impartial and not-for-profit organisation, tied to no political, partisan or national interest, the Forum provides the necessary neutral space for multi-stakeholder dialogue and has the profile to attract high-level international participants.
Furthermore, while scenarios are interesting to read in isolation, their value is most obvious when they are proactively used in a dynamic environment such as the Forum can provide. As it is well-known for its orientation towards long-range and interdisciplinary thinking, the Forum is ideally placed not only to nurture the development of integrated frameworks of thought but also to facilitate the subsequent translation of scenarios into multi-stakeholder action.

Who are we?
- Kristel Van der Elst, Director, Head of Scenario Planning
- Chiemi Hayashi, Associate Director, Global Leadership Fellow
- Nicholas Davis, Associate Director, Global Leadership Fellow
- Stephan Mergenthaler, Project Associate
- Carissa Sahli, Team Coordinator, Strategic Insight Teams

For more information, please contact: scenarios@weforum.org