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Future thinking techniques






  Delphi’s primary strength is its ability to explore, tranquilly and objectively, issues that require judgement. The repititious Delphi method, allows the forecasting and assessment without the effect of strong personalities or reputations influencing other panelists. It overcomes the difficulty of getting all experts together in a single time and place.




  Scenario planning can be defined as a rich and detailed portrait of a plausible future world, one sufficiently vivid that a planner can clearly see and comprehend the problems, challenges and opportunities of such an environment.





  Back-view mirror analysis builds upon the assumption that any future oriented group process has to manage peoples’ difficulties in thinking into the future. These difficulties can arise from the fears as well as from the lack of experience in futures thinking.



  Back-view mirror analysis allows dealing with the fears related to the future by creating a new perspective that looks to the past instead of starting the process in the present.





   One of the strengths of cross-impact analysis is that it forces the attention towards “chains of causality: x affects y; y affects z”. On the other side it can be very fatiguing and monotonous.





   The relevance tree is an analytical technique that subdivides a large subject into increasingly smaller subtopics. The relevance tree has a form of a hierarchical structure that begins with a high level of abstraction and moves down with greater degree of detail in the following levels of the tree. It is a powerful technique that helps to ensure that a given problem or issue is broken into comprehensive detail and that important connections among the elements considered are presented in both current and potential situations.



   Research in a number of academic fields have demonstrated that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.





   Visioning is a popular method in the studies of desirable futures and the one that gives emphasis to values. It is extensively used in urban planning. The visioning process is based on the assumption that images of the future lead peoples’ present behaviours, guide choices and influence decisions. Images of the future can be positive or negative and cause different responses according to the perceptions.



   Vision is usually seen as a positive, desirable image of the future and can be defined as a compelling, inspiring statement of the preferred future that the authors and those who subscribe to the vision want to create.



   There are a number of issues that need to be addressed while using the visioning method. Vision comprises peoples’ values, wishes, fears and desires. In order to make the visioning process work it is necessary to ensure that it is not making an idealistic wish-list; that vision is an image of the future shared by a whole community; and that the vision is translatable into reality.



   Trend analysis is one of the most often used methods in forecasting. It aims to observe and register the past performance of a certain factor and project it into the future.





   The most challenging part of qualitative trends analysis is identification of a tendency early, as recognition of a mature trend is “relatively useless” in influencing anyone’s behaviour.





  Game theory studies choice of optimal behavior when costs and benefits of each option are not fixed, but depend upon the choices of other individuals.









Wikipedia