Thinking About "Opportunity Scenario"

Opportunity scenarios are no utopias. They are grounded in reality and might best be characterised as "down-to-earth" visions. Changes and surprises characterise the future, but we also have to reckon with continuities. Even if we think rather far ahead, depen on the case, a lot of things are unlikely to have changed decisively, excepting the odd catastrophe.

Scenarios are a tool to help us perceive different futures, each of which is influenced by decisions we make today. Put simply, they are a combination of stories - written or oral - that make up a bigger plot. A scenario gives a multi-perspectival picture of a complex future. Precisely because the future is unpredictable, scenarios are good planning tools.

The first question when developing scenarios is therefore: what will remain constant or will only change very little? Which major trends will continue beyond the period of time researched?

Creating a scenario is a dialogical process that brings together different visions and interests. The aim is to bridge the gap between key analyses of present day problems and various possibilities in the future.

These were not predictions of the future, nor were they strategic plans. They did not describe some utopian future or even one we would quite like, but simply possibilities that might occur because of what we do today.

Scenarios are windows to the future. They are used to show possible or desirable future developments coherently and plausibly. Today, scenarios are used for diverse purposes: in business process, in innovative processes, in governmental planning, in city development or regional planning, etc. Again and again they are also used as a tool to sensitise the general public, companies' workforces, or other groups of people for future developments and to stimulate discussion on influencing factors and personal scope.

The future is wide open: different developments are feasible, both positive and negative. It's mostly easier to imagine nightmare scenarios: a global or national economic crisis, the breakdown of our social systems, ecological disasters. Intellectually, these scenarios are rather lowbrow, and they usually assume that people will be either indecisive or behave utterly unreasonable, and at any rate do to little to late.

However, what we need is not a reactive, but a proactive approach to the future, a timely turning away of danger, or a purposeful working towards improvement. In both cases, opportunity scenarios come handy. Furthermore, nightmare scenarios tend to paralyse our thinking and our actions. Opportunity scenarios, on the other hand, mobilise and appeal to us to intervene actively: There are goals worth fighting for!