The COVID–19 pandemic is producing large complex perturbations to all societies along many dimensions, not only medical but also economic, political, social, and technological area. It is unlikely that the post–COVID world will revert to the status quo ante. As a consequence, short–, medium– and long–term futures are increasingly unpredictable and therefore also increasingly influenceable. Traditional way of foresight that relies on the experts, creating their own assumptions without holistic perspective cannot be a tool to address the challenges posed by this situation. We are facing substantial uncertainty, where realizing the next normal is the critical basis.

The external environment changes rapidly and unpredictably. What worked yesterday won’t work tomorrow. To prepare to operate in this higher level of complexity, strategic plan need to be proved for the chances of business survival. We cannot predict the future but we can definitely shape the future of our businesses. Scenario planning as one of the strategic foresight tools can help us take a long view in a world of great uncertainty. Focusing on identifying driving forces, scenarios can reveal how the future will play out and can navigate your organization successfully as well as increase a strong level of resilience.

Scenario planning is a method of direction-finding and strategy formation that defines itself by non-prediction.           A scenario is a story about what could happen: an internally-consistent hypothesis about the future that is relevant, challenging, plausible, and clear. It is not a story about what will happen (a forecast or prediction) and not a story about what should happen (a vision or proposal or plan). Scenarios are a tool for communicating about and working with an unpredictable future. Based on a transformative and collaborative process, Transformative Scenario Planning invites multiple framings of an uncertain situation, making scenario learners more aware and conscious of the situation to make sense of the world. 

Formulating strategy under uncertainty is a central challenge facing organizations. The adoption of difficult-to-change hypotheses about the future becomes critical. This course will enable a contestation of the future in your organizations that allowed better decisions and help you and your organization to create a healthy strategic conversation that allows stakeholders to consider ideas that are not familiar to them, and to compete uncertainty and challenges in a Turbulent-Uncertain-Novel-Ambiguous (TUNA) world.