Deliverables

Futures Literacy Laboratories are carefully designed and facilitated workshops that help participants surface assumptions, explore alternative futures, and generate new insights for the present.

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Typical elements include:

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• framing the topic and time horizon

• stakeholder interviews and briefing

• participant selection and preparation

• design of the lab process

• facilitation of the lab

• harvesting of insights

• synthesis report and next steps

Foresight workshops are shorter interventions designed to explore change, develop scenarios, and support strategic conversations.

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They can take different forms, including:​

 

• scenario sprints

• futures games

• Three Horizons workshops

• Causal Layered Analysis

• Futures Wheel

• systems mapping and causal loop work

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These formats are useful as standalone interventions or as entry points into a broader foresight practice.
 

For organisations that want a more lasting impact, Near & Next can help embed foresight and futures literacy into leadership, strategy, and organisational routines.

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This may include:

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• identifying where futures thinking adds most value

• defining priority themes and questions

• training teams and leaders

• designing an ongoing foresight agenda

• building feedback and learning loops

• defining desired outcomes and evaluation criteria
   

Near & Next also produces research-based reports on future-facing topics.

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These reports can help organisations:

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• understand emerging change

• clarify strategic implications

• support planning and decision-making

• keep important topics under review over time

Training formats introduce the foundations, uses, and benefits of foresight and futures literacy.

 

Sessions can be tailored to different audiences, including leadership teams, strategy functions, public servants, educators, and mixed groups.

A futurist-in-residence format offers a more immersive way to build futures capacity.

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Over a defined period, a futurist works alongside your organisation to help teams and leaders integrate foresight into real decisions, workflows, and conversations.

What happens after the workshop, the lab, or the scenarios ?

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Future-oriented transformation is the third pillar in the process​: 

 

anticipate → rethink → transform

 

The objective is to  translate foresight into alignment, action, and organisational change.

 

In other words, futures work is not only about methods, tools, and processes. It also helps develop the mindset needed to navigate change: openness, curiosity, adaptability, and a willingness to question assumptions.

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To unlock its full value, foresight requires leadership support, broad participation, and diverse perspectives. When these conditions are in place, it can become a powerful enabler of change and transformation.

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Many futures methods are especially useful in transformation contexts because they help people reframe issues, explore alternatives, create shared understanding, and build readiness for action.

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Futures workshops can also support team development. They encourage dialogue across functions and perspectives, strengthen collective sense-making, and help teams align around future challenges and opportunities.