Inovo futuring overview

Futuring
Understanding the Futures that are Critical to your Growth
Copyright © 2016 The Inovo Group LLC

The Issue
• Current corporate strategy processes
focus on the near term
• Most companies lack either the interest
or ability to perceive the world as it could
exist 10 to 15 years from now
• People cognitively have a difficult time with
futures that are further than 2 to 3 years out
• A linear projection of current trends is like
“… trying to drive down a country road at
night with no lights while looking out the
back window. - Peter Drucker
• There will be non-linearities; people don’t do
well with these
Copyright © 2016 The Inovo Group LLC 2
“We always overestimate the change
that will occur in the next two years
and underestimate the change that will
occur in the next ten.” – Bill Gates

Principles and Foundation of Futuring
• Principles
– Iterate and diverge-converge
– Use multiple lenses for viewing the future
– Develop ‘guiderails’ and ‘compasses’
– Incorporate dynamic systems thinking
• Inovo’s methodology is built on a proven
foundation:
– Foresight methods – Andy Hines
– Scenario planning – Peter Schwartz
– Participatory Futures – Tim Lynam
• Cautionary notes
– This is hard, thinking work
– 80/20 rule – 80% of what’s important is in
20% of what is created
– A potential future may seem crazy – but
there’s always some insight to be had
For an overview of futuring techniques see:
Bishop, P., Hines, A., Collins, T.; The Current
State of Scenario Development: An Overview
of Techniques; Foresight; Vol. 9 No. 1 2007

Recent Inovo Futuring Experience
• Automotive – Saint Gobain Performance Materials
• Automotive – Dow Chemical (Kokam electric vehicle JV)
• Commercial Transportation – ExxonMobil Research & Eng’g
• Industrial Systems – Parker Hannifin
• Aerospace – Saint Gobain Performance Materials
• Retail – ExxonMobil Fuels & Lubes Marketing
• Health Care – UnitedHealth Group
• Food – Bettcher Industries
These experiences will be used to provide
illustrative examples in the slides to follow

Futuring Process – 4 Stages
5
   Gathering
& Learning
Scenario
Building
Story
Telling
Activation
Causes &
Effects
Future
Narratives
Forces &
Trends
Current
Actions

Gathering &
Learning
What others think and say about the
future, focusing on consensus trends
and weak signals
1. Subject matter expert interviews
2. Insight curation
3. Future trend statements
6
 Gathering
& Learning
Forces &
Trends

1. Subject Matter Expert Interviews
Internal and External
• Gain the perspective of internal
and external experts and
stakeholders
• Tap into a diverse population of
future thinkers
• A structured dialog about the
future

2. Insight Curation
• Web based “Team Reading and
Sharing” with annotation for fast
“content absorption”
─ Collaborative collection of relevant
content by all team members
─ Sharing of information, insights
and evidence
• Extraction and gathering of key
information, insights and evidence
• Raw material for creative process
to build futures
• Library for future reference
Diigo Bookmarking Tool
Mindmaps capture
relevant snippets of
articles and interviews

3. Future Trend Statements
• Insights from interviews and
research are rolled-up in a set of
future trend statements
• Consensus Trends
– What everyone seems to be talking
about
– Important but don’t convey any
proprietary knowledge or insight
• Weak Signal Trends
– Just starting to have an effect
– Hard to distinguish from the ‘noise’
– When recognized, give you unique
knowledge and insight on how the
future could unfold

Scenario
Building
Transforming future trends into an
interconnected system of cause and
effect involving people, technologies,
organizations, economies and societies
1. Implications
2. Scenario lenses
3. Scenario building
10
Scenario
Building
Causes &
Effects

1. Implications
• Create first, second (and third)
order implications of the trends
• Which are the most important
implications?
• Implications & trends are the
building blocks of scenarios

2. Scenario Lenses – Design, Demand and System
12
Design Lens Demand Lens System Lens
Using these lenses, we create multiple scenarios
based on the established trends and implications

3. Scenario Building
13Copyright © 2016 The Inovo Group LLC
Scenarios Defined by System Influence Diagrams

Storytelling
Creating stories about the future
that illuminate key insights about
how people and organizations
could behave
1. Story placemats
2. Story components
3. Stories
14
 Story
Telling
Future
Narratives

1. Story Placemats
• Tell a story of the future that
comes from a future scenario
• Make the future understandable
and accessible
• Illuminate those aspects of the
future that are most important

2. Story Components
• Infrastructure reimagined
– Airports and cities create integrated systems.
Airports are centers for both aircraft and
traveler big-data
– Airports improve travel efficiencies through
intelligent software and hardware (robotics)
• Rise of the drone economy
– Economics of commercial drone use drive
industry wide changes.
• Aircraft are smart and connected
– Constant communication and tracking in an
integrated airspace for commercial and
private aircraft of all sizes and shapes

3. Stories – Written and Visual

Activation
Identify key sources and signals
that tell you how the future is
unfolding and what to pay
attention to
1. Backcasting
2. Activation Points
18
 Activation
Current
Plans

1. Backcasting
• Stepping back from the described future
and identifying conditions that would need
to be in place to make the future a reality:
– 10-15 years
– 6-9 years
– 3-5 years
• Three dimensions of change
– Design dimension (technology)
– Demand dimension (markets)
– System dimension (PESTEL: Political,
Economic, Social, Environmental, Legal)

2A. Activation Points
• An important milestone on the way to
the future
– A synthesis of one or more backcast
stepping stones
– Impact on the company if it occurred
– Can be ‘seen’ coming if the proper
signals are monitored
• Used to make the future actionable
– Source of debate and creative insights
– Not a prediction; may be contentious
– Multiple activation points create a basis
for addressing future uncertainty

2B. Activation Points Event
• Pro-Con Debate
– What are the driving forces that have caused this
activation point to happen? Proximate & ultimate causes.
– What barriers or constraints that could prevent or inhibit
the activation point from happening. What would be an
alternate future?
• Insight, Sense, Action Ideate
– What specific events or developments that would signal
that this activation point was going to happen or not happen
– What types of technologies, customers and business
models will be important?
– Describe what our company would need to do differently if
this activation point happened.
– What new businesses should our company get into? What
existing businesses should our company get out of?

2C. Activation Point Survey
• Wisdom-of-crowds to calibrate the
activation points
– Helps identify which futures are the most
critical to pay attention to
• Impact – Likelihood
– How likely is this to occur?
– What would be the impact on your
company if it did occur?
• Agreement – Certainty
– How certain are you of your assessment
about the likelihood and impact
– How much agreement is there within the
group (calculated).

Four Key Deliverables
Item Use
Themes - Domains
Synthesis of the future scenarios that focus where the
company should pay attention
Super-forecasts
Forecasts of specific outcomes provides a basis for
discussion and metrics for monitoring what is happening
Sensing-Action Monitor (optional)
A system for on-going, constantly updated tracking of
the items listed in the action plans
Action Plans
What to look for, where to look, who to engage with and
what projects to initiate as the future unfolds

Future of
Automotive
Autonomo
us Driving
Life
without a
Car
Interior
Experience
Drones for
Delivery
Integrated
Ecosystems
Explosion
of
Segments
Deliverable: Themes – Domains
A theme organizes the insights that
emerge from the team’s futures
• Four scenarios examined and common
elements are extracted and grouped.
• Groups are arranged and combined to
reveal themes
• Set of 5-8 high-level themes is
synthesized as the basis for action plans

Deliverable: Super-forecasts
• Methodology adapted from Tetlock
& Gardner’s Super forecasting
– Subjective assessments based on facts
– There are ‘super forecasting’ experts
• Principles
– Be specific: e.g., use 75% rather than
‘very likely’
– Be specific in time: indicate by when
– Use default %: evidence adjusts + and –
– Continually adjust based on new
evidence
• Remember that 75% positive means
there is still a 25% negative chance

Deliverable: Sensing-Action Monitor
Quarterly report
monitoring the sensing-
action plans
Online curated content
sharing and tracking of
signals, triggers and actions
Collaborative, ongoing
sensing-action system
tracks plans and
continually updates
27

Deliverable: Action Plans
• What are the impacts and
reasons for those impacts
• What to look for and where
to look (continuous)
• Who to engage with and
how to engage

Futuring Initiative – Adaptable to Your Situation and Budget
Duration: 1-6 months
Key Events: 1-4 group sessions
Team Size: 2-8 core team members
Choice of Future
Extent of outreach
Complexity of scenarios
Team size & involvement
Action implementation
Specific General
Basic Extensive
Narratives Models
Small Large
Report System

No one can predict the future, but you can think
about it systematically
1. Escape from immediate, pressing business to think about what the world will
be like in 10 to 15 years
2. Challenge your current assumptions and perspective and imagine plausible
futures in different ways
3. Discuss and debate ‘future knowledge’ you hold in your heads and that other
people are discussing
4. Develop new insights that lead directly to strategy, opportunities and actions
5. Create a plan to see how your futures are unfolding and what actions to take
“Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to
wait for the train of the future to run over him.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Copyright © 2015 The Inovo Group, LLC 32
Larry Schmitt
Managing Partner and Co-founder
213 South Ashley St., Suite 300
Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA
P: +1 (734) 604-3887
E: lschmitt@theinovogroup.com
The Inovo Group
Contact…
www.theinovogroup.com

Inovo futuring overview

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