Scenarios in Strategic Foresight

1. Key Scenario Objectives in Strategic Foresight

Exploration Scenarios

• Purpose: Open-minded investigation of “what could happen” by mapping critical uncertainties and driving forces.

  
  

• When to use: At the outset of a foresight process to surface blind spots, expand your organization’s sense of possibility, and challenge prevailing mental models.

  
  

• Example: In the 1970s, Shell developed its famous “Oil Shock” scenarios to explore how a sudden OPEC embargo might play out. By outlining multiple plausible oil‐market trajectories, Shell’s strategists built an early warning system for geopolitical and supply shocks—and ultimately outmaneuvered competitors when the 1973 crisis hit.

  
  

Preparation Scenarios

• Purpose: Test existing strategies against a bounded set of plausible futures to identify robust options, early warning indicators, and contingency plans.

  
  

• When to use: Once strategic options are on the table, and you need to ensure they survive a range of future contexts.

  
  

• Example: The Bank of England’s climate “stress-tests” (2021–2022) used a small suite of high-, medium- and low-emission storylines to probe how banks’ loan portfolios would fare under different carbon-transition pathways—enabling regulators to flag systemic risks and guide financial institutions toward resilience.

Transformation Scenarios

• Purpose: Design a path from today to a desired future (often normative), identifying levers for large-scale change, backcasting to today’s decisions.

  
  

• When to use: When your goal is not merely to adapt, but to shape the future—e.g. sustainability transitions, organizational reinvention, or social innovation.

  
  

• Example: WWF’s “Earth for All” framework (2020) defines a safe and just planetary future by 2050 and then backcasts to identify policy, investment, and behavioral interventions needed now—mobilizing governments and businesses around concrete transformation roadmaps.

2. Explorative vs. Normative Scenarios

Dimension	Explorative (“What might be?”)	Normative (“What should be?”)
Focus	Externally driven uncertainties and plausible developments	Internally driven aspirations and value-laden goals
Use Cases	Early-stage scanning, stress-testing, sense-making of uncertainty	Visioning, mission alignment, backcasting to set strategic or policy targets
Output	Divergent storylines (often 3–5) spanning an uncertainty spectrum	A single (or small menu of) “preferred” futures, with milestones to achieve
Examples	Shell’s “Blueprints” vs. “Fortress Europe” oil-market scenarios (explorative)	The UN’s 2030 Agenda as a normative scenario for sustainable development

3. How They Interrelate

Exploration → Preparation → Transformation

• Start broad: Use explorative scenarios to map the landscape of uncertainty.

• Narrow down: Select the most relevant explorative futures to prepare and stress-test strategies.

• Aim high: Where ambition exists, define normative (transformative) scenarios and backcast to mobilize action.

• Cross-Pollination

• A robust foresight cycle often iterates between these modes. For instance, stress-testing may reveal new uncertainties, prompting further exploration; or a transformative vision may highlight gaps in current preparedness.

4. Case Study Matrix

Use Case	Objective	Type	Real-World Example
Opening Minds	Surface new threats & opportunities	Explorative	Shell’s “Oil Shock” (1971–75)
Risk Management	Validate strategies under uncertainty	Preparation (explorative subset)	Bank of England climate stress-tests (2021–22)
Strategic Visioning	Forge a compelling strategic vision	Normative / Transformative	WWF’s “Earth for All” backcasting to 2050
Policy Roadmapping	Align multi-stakeholder targets	Normative	UN Sustainable Development Goals framing (2015–2030)
Business Model Reinvention	Drive business transformation	Hybrid: explorative + transformative	Philips’ “Healthy People, Sustainable Planet” scenario program

5. Choosing the Right Approach

If you’re uncertain where major disruptions lie, begin with explorative scenarios.

If you already have strategic options and need confidence in their robustness, deploy preparation scenarios to stress-test and refine.

If your ambition is proactive change, craft normative/transformative scenarios and backcast: define your “preferred future” and work backward to sequence milestones, policies, and investments.

By consciously sequencing and blending these scenario‐types—moving from “what might be” to “what should be,” and rigorously testing “what we can prepare for”—organizations can both guard against shocks and intentionally steer toward transformative goals.