Scenario planning

Scenario planning develops several plausible, internally consistent accounts of how the future might unfold. Organizations use them to test decisions across uncertainty rather than predict one outcome.

Intuitive logics: A scenario-building approach that combines critical uncertainties into coherent accounts of possible futures. This method turns uncertainty into contrasting narratives without assigning precise probabilities.
Shell (company): A multinational energy company that developed influential scenario-planning practices beginning in the 1970s. Shell used scenarios to prepare executives for possible disruptions in global oil markets.
Herman Kahn: An American strategist who used detailed future scenarios in military and policy analysis. Kahn helped popularize scenarios as a disciplined way to explore strategic possibilities.
Forecasting: The use of evidence and methods to estimate future values, events, or trends. Forecasting estimates likely outcomes; scenario planning explores several coherent possibilities.
Black swan theory: A framework describing rare, high-impact events that are difficult to anticipate and explain afterward. It highlights limits of scenarios built from familiar forces and imaginable disruptions.
Driving forces: Underlying trends and conditions that shape how a system may change over time. Analysts identify these forces before deciding which uncertainties should distinguish scenarios.
Strategic management: The process of setting organizational direction and allocating resources to achieve long-term goals. Scenario planning is one way to shape strategy under uncertain conditions.
RAND Corporation: An American research organization founded in 1948 to support military and public-policy analysis. RAND developed forecasting and scenario techniques that influenced later planning practice.
Prediction: A claim about what will happen in the future. Scenarios are conditional possibilities, not declarations that one future will occur.
Groupthink: A decision-making failure in which a group suppresses dissent to preserve consensus. Scenario workshops can reproduce shared blind spots unless participants challenge their assumptions.

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