Learning from Tomorrow: Using Strategic Foresight to Prepare for the Next Big Disruption

by Bart Édes

COVID-19 wrecked the plans and strategies of organizations everywhere, while injecting greater uncertainty into a world already undergoing disruptive social and technological change. Strategic Foresight can help us navigate through the recovery and beyond. Strategic Foresight is a systematic, intelligence-gathering, vision-building process that helps us manage uncertainty by discerning plausible alternative futures and applying the insights to present-day planning. It is ideally suited to a world upended by the pandemic and rapid transformations in the way we live, work and interact. Using approachable language and a multitude of examples, Learning from Tomorrow shows how Strategic Foresight broadens our perspectives, exposes opportunities and risks, and opens our minds to innovation in a post-pandemic world. It is essential reading for organizational leaders and those responsible for developing strategies, scenarios, policies and plans.

95 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 26, 2021

Reviews

[Joseph F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was introduced to Strategic Planning as a nonprofit hospital administrator in the 1970s when it was not at all unusual for plans to extend out ten years. As the pace of change sped up, plans contracted, five to ten, five, three to five, to now where two and two to three year plans are commonplace. I believe Bart Édes book Learning from tomorrow: Using Strategic Foresight to Plan for the Next Big Disruption is a clarion call, to reverse the trend, extending Strategic Planning out ten, twenty or more years infusing the tried and true methods of Strategic Planning with a “Strategic Foresight” methodology. The author’s methodology, distinguishes between crystal ball forecasting and Strategic Foresight, enabling users (global entities, countries, industries, organizations, et al) to scientifically envision long term future scenarios from the most likely to the most improbable and others in between, bringing value added to Strategic Planning efforts.

Édes espouses “Strategic Foresight” as a necessary and useful tool in an organization’s planning toolbox. He differentiates Foresight from Forecasting explaining that foresight uses a scientific approach to envision possible futures, from the likely to the improbable. This then becomes the basis to plan for organizational development and change to survive and even flourish in a rapidly changing and reactionary world. Édes provides readers a six step methodology for implementing Strategic Forecasting, examples of its application, and resources for continued learning.

Édes makes the case that Foresight, properly staffed and supported, will position users to not only survive in a rapidly changing and even volatile environment, but also to change, thrive, and grow.

I suspect, those organizations that will be strong and competitive in the future, will be those organizations that embrace the practice of Strategic Foresight and implement same. Read it now, lest it be too late.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have been shocking and surprising. How could we have better imagined and prepared for the changes and challenges that resulted from this crisis? ‘Learning from Tomorrow’ has an answer. Strategic Foresight is a tool for governments and corporations to anticipate and plan for future possibilities. Beyond linear projections of current trends Foresight “explores a range of plausible alternative paths by identifying drivers that influence what could come next”. In this slim volume Bart Edes breaks down the process and provides examples of how Foresight has been used in planning for future changes.
Besides being an important tool for policy makers and business decision makers, it is an interesting read and inspires us to think about the directions our world will change in the future.