IFTF Foresight Essentials
IFTF Scenario Building
Upskill your foresight with scenario thinking
In times of high uncertainty, one essential foresight method stands out—alternative scenarios.
If you want to add scenario thinking to your toolbox for foresight, design, strategic planning, or innovation leadership, this course will walk you step by step
through the process of crafting visionary scenarios—one of the most rewarding, impactful, and
challenging activities in a foresight practice.
This time-tested framework from world-renowned futurist Jim Dator helps sort through the
chaos and complexity of world-changing moments like the Covid-19 pandemic. It provides us with
the tools to organize overwhelming events, signals, and memes into four clear paths to the
future—and to convert those paths to strategic action.
Learn the method and prepare to apply it
IFTF Scenario Building teaches you our unique approach—part analysis, part art—to the
Alternative Futures scenario method. You'll learn the building blocks of scenario-based storytelling:
defining your stakeholders, their core values and dilemmas, and using quantitative and qualitative data
to design plausible, provocative paths to multiple futures.
Working with a small team of learners from around the world, you'll dive deep into one of the four
Alternative Futures scenario archetypes: growth, constraint, collapse, and transformation.
Next, you'll explore the full set of four scenarios to generate strategic insights and design a scenario
communications strategy. With IFTF coaching, you'll untangle the ups and downs and creative challenges of professional scenario planning.
The Scenario Building Toolkit has been designed by IFTF senior researcher, Distinguished Fellow Kathi Vian,
and a team of IFTF expert faculty will guide you through each step along the way.
The course will be offered live-online in five sessions of three hours each. Expect up to one hour of
intersession work for a total of 18-20 hours of time investment.
IFTF Scenario Building is for you if you want to:
- Improve your foresight practice with scenario methods
- Prepare to lead your stakeholders or organization through a scenario process
- Tune your creative thinking and imagination about possible futures
- Build your scenario-building confidence
The course includes
- Immersive, content-rich, multi-session, live-online instruction in alternative futures scenario
building skills, methodologies, and processes facilitated d by senior IFTF research staff - A proprietary IFTF Scenario Building Toolkit built on 50+ years of proven futures research and methodologies
- Post-Pandemic Scenario Map and Scenario presentations
- Presenter slides including key takeaways and learnings
- A Certificate of Completion in alternative scenarios demonstrating your accomplishment
to share with potential employers or clients - Networking opportunities with attendees
- Membership into the global IFTF Foresight Essentials alumni community—an exclusive
learning network that supports your development as a foresight practitioner beyond the
confines of the course.
Who should attend
IFTF Scenario Building is ideal for professionals seeking to expand or complement their
foresight, innovation, planning, or design practice with the alternative future scenario methodology.
This course is recommended for those who have some basic familiarity with foresight or futures thinking.
For those looking for an introduction to futures thinking or a general foresight methods class, please enroll
in IFTF Foresight Essentials.
Technologies Used
- Zoom: This video conferencing platform will be our primary virtual tool to hold all our live online training sessions and optional social gatherings. Please ensure you have a stable internet connection to join us by video.
- Miro: This online workspace is where we'll capture the entire visual narrative of our learning and where you'll collaborate with colleagues and work independently on futures exercises. We strongly recommend you familiarize yourself with Miro before the training begins.
- Google Drive: This space will hold your agenda, training materials, pre-work instructions, instructional videos, session recordings, and presentation slides.
Agenda
SESSION 1 | Orient to Alternative Futures
Learn the foundational framework, compare scenario examples and use cases, get comfortable
with your new colleagues and the Miro platform we use, and brainstorm initial ideas about our scenario domain.
SESSION 2 | Define Parameters
Begin the scenario definition process by identifying key stakeholders and infrastructure,
delving into stakeholder mindsets, and working with the mythic questions at the heart of each scenario archetype.
SESSION 3 | Build a Research Grid
Refine your scenario with signals and drivers of change, then make choices about key values, dilemmas,
and catalysts that set your scenario in motion.
SESSION 4 | Bring your Scenarios to Life
Balance and adjust across all four scenarios, build your narrative along three unfolding horizons
of change, then finalize your vision in a scenario board.
SESSION 5 | Insight to Action
Turn your scenario board into a short narrative, learn how to facilitate insight sessions with
completed scenarios, and plan your own scenario-building future.
Dates
SEPTEMBER 10-20, 2021 | Live-Online [SOLD OUT]
Session 1: Fri, Sep 10 | 9am-12pm PDT | 12-3pm EDT | 4-7pm UTC
Session 2: Mon, Sep 13 | 9am-12pm PDT | 12-3pm EDT | 4-7pm UTC
Session 3: Wed, Sep 15 | 9am-12pm PDT | 12-3pm EDT | 4-7pm UTC
Session 4: Fri, Sep 17 | 9am-12pm PDT | 12-3pm EDT | 4-7pm UTC
Session 5: Mon, Sep 20 | 9am-12pm PDT | 12-3pm EDT | 4-7pm UTC
MARCH 30-APRIL 8, 2022 | Live-Online
Session 1: Wed, Mar 30 | 9am-12pm PDT | 12-3pm EDT | 16:00-19:00 UTC
Session 2: Fri, Apr 1 | 9am-12pm PDT | 12-3pm EDT | 16:00-19:00 UTC
Session 3: Mon, Apr 4 | 9am-12pm PDT | 12-3pm EDT | 16:00-19:00 UTC
Session 4: Wed, Apr 6 | 9am-12pm PDT | 12-3pm EDT | 16:00-19:00 UTC
Session 5: Fri, Apr 8 | 9am-12pm PDT | 12-3pm EDT | 16:00-19:00 UTC
*Not finding what you're looking for? Fill out this 2-minute survey to help us plan our upcoming sessions!
Registration Fees
- $3,500 Standard
- $3,000 Nonprofit/education/government*
- $3,000 IFTF Vantage partners or IFTF Foresight Essentials alumni*
Space is limited; early registration is recommended.
*Email register@iftf.org to verify your eligibility for discounted rates.
SCHOLARSHIPS NOW AVAILABLE! Do you need financial assistance? IFTF offers a limited number of scholarships for individuals who are underrepresented in the field of foresight or using foresight
for social good or change to attend our trainings. Apply here »
Contact
For questions, please contact:
register@iftf.org