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A Foresight Session for IPK

By the IPK team, with Caroline Phily

Building Foresight Skills From Within

IPK asked one of its associates, Caroline Phily, to design and host a series of internal working sessions on Foresight. Why? First, to get an understanding of what Foresight is and why it matters and consider how to build Foresight tools into our own practices. And secondly, there is no better way to learn than to apply the approach to IPK itself!

What Is Foresight and Why Is It So Important?

Foresight is both a capacity and a process. A capacity to let go of current assumptions to systematically envisage the future, and; a collaborative and participative process of building visions of the future to inform “future ready” decisions and strategies today.

Through practicing Foresight, we can get an awareness of change, anticipate the future, discover new possibilities and learn about implications, directions, and possible pathways. We can make sense of the world in new and enlightened ways, and prepare better for what lies ahead of us.

In our world where uncertainty is growing and change is accelerating, building Foresight skills can support organizations, societies and individuals to shape the future they want and to adapt to quickly changing realities.


Foresight Activities and Tools

As for any process, a Foresight engagement is not a once-off intervention, but requires a series of activities leading to the desired change. We used Wendy Shultz “activities for the future” framework to design the flow of our internal sessions.

For each step, different tools exist, developed by various institutions, to support facilitators in engaging the participants and putting them in a “future” state of mind. Among the most “famous” tools are the 3-horizons, the wheel of the futures or building scenarios. For IPK sessions, we decided to use horizon scanning and three horizons.

Applying the Approach to IPK

As any organisation, we at IPK need to get ready for the future ahead of us. The old ways of process designing and facilitating are behind us, and as everyone else, we have also experienced the rapidly accelerating need to transition into the virtual realm entirely. But what will our client’s needs and our work look like in 10 years from now?

Framing: what are our futures of interest
To start thinking about this question, we first brainstormed to frame our issue. What uncertainties and changes are impacting IPK today? What changes do we need to learn more about? Our reflections led us to identifying 3 main futures of interest for IPK, the future of organisational culture, the future of technology and the future of international organisations.

Awareness of change: horizon scanning
With our futures of interest identified, the next step consists of identifying the drivers and trends which are shaping them. Foresight practitioners, sometimes called futurists are constantly looking for evidence of the future in our present, also known as signals. What is already happening today which could be mainstreamed in the future? Signals can be in a form of an emerging technology or a scientific breakthrough, a new law, a vision held by an artist or a leader. As a way to prepare for our second session, all IPK members committed to look for 3 signal of changes and to ask themselves:

1. What kind of change does this represent? From what to what?
2. What’s driving this change? What’s the future force behind it?
3. What might the world be like in 10 years if this change gets bigger, if it is common and widespread?
4. Is this a future we want to help make?

The Next Session: Using 3 Horizons

For our upcoming session, we will apply the 3 horizon methods to further map the current assumptions we are working under; uncover the trends which are shaping our futures, and; try to identify how to leverage the opportunities the potential futures are presenting to us… Stay tuned for more….

References:
Introduction to Futures Thinking, Institute For the Future
Foresight Reference Guide, Thinking Futures
Foresight Manual, Empowered Futures for the 2030 Agenda, UNDP

Please contact us at info@i-p-k.co.za for more on Foresight and futures planning.

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