Alternative Futures Facilitation Toolbox

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX, VERSION 1.0 IAF Special Interest Group

SIG FOUNDING MEMBERS Saara Surla (Finland)

Erina Possak, CPF (Canada)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/saarasuurla/

Paolo Martinez, CPF (Italy)

Paul Nunesdea, PhD, CPF

https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinezpaolo/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nunesdea/

TOOLS Preparation tools

01

INTRO AND RESULTS

A

Background & 5 concepts

Why / why not?

Outcomes

B

02

Starting tools

INDEX ALTERNATIVE FUTURES 03 FACILITATION TOOLBOX INDEX

04

C 06

05 Attachments

After tools

During tools

Ending tools

BACKGROUND & 5 CONCEPTS • Toolbox background: • An IAF Special Interest Group was initiated to look into future studies combined with facilitation best practices. Future studies is a field of science where socially defined information lays the basis of proactive and systematic strategic foresight.

• The idea of this material is to share best practices in an open source way. In case of questions, please ask for more detail by contacting us at: office@iaf-world.org

• This material consists of 3 ”opening” and 2 ”closing” alternative futures facilitation workshop concepts for investigating the best practices of facilitation and future studies • • • • •

Concept 1: Weak signals workshop Concept 2: Shared vision workshop Concept 3: Renewal of present state strategy Concept 4: Deep grinding of chosen themes Concept 5: Stress tested strategy by alternative futures

• Each concept has 5 parts: preparation, starting, during, ending and after tools. After the preparation phase the workshop concept can be chosen according to the recognized needs for the workshop.

• The final chapter describes briefly the expected outcomes of the 5 different workshop concepts in order to evaluate which one would answer to the need of the workshop owner the best.

• All basic phases in the 5 concepts are the same, except the during phase describes methods and materials specific to this workshop concept.

A

WHY ALTERNATIVE FUTURES ARE TYPICALLY NOT CONSIDERED?

B

• Behavioral economics principles affecting neglect and benefiting of alternative futures insights:

Hyperbolic Discounting People put an unrealistically high value on the here and now and an unrealistically low value on the future.

Availability Bias People give undue weight to what easily comes to mind: often vivid memories or recent events.

Default Bias People pick the easiest option to avoid complex decisions. Defaults provide a cognitive shortcut and signal what people are supposed to do.

Confirmation Bias People analyze and search for information in ways that support their current ideas.

What-the-hell Effect People give up on their goal once they’ve fallen off track.

Herding People tend to do what others are doing.

Friction Costs People can be deterred from taking action by seemingly small barriers.

Decision Paralysis When given many options, people make the easiest choice, which is often no choice at all.

Self-Herding People make decisions by asking themselves what they did last time and assume what they already did must have been a good idea.

Ostrich Effect People who are worried they have fallen off track don’t want to know how they’re doing.

Anchoring The first fact, number, or figure a person hears will bias their judgements and decisions down the line.

Relativity People evaluate options by comparing them to what else is around.

Source: Behavioral Economics Principles, Common Cents Lab, drawings: Saara Suurla

B

WHY ALTERNATIVE FUTURES SHOULD BE CONSIDERED • Behavioral economics principles why alternative futures work should be a part of every successful organizations’ operations systemically:

Goal Gradient People will work harder to achieve a goal as the goal gets closer.

Omission Bias People consider harmful actions worse than equally harmful inactions.

Implementation Intentions People are more likely to do something when they specify how, when, and where they will do it.

Gamification People like to play games! They will go to great lengths playing a game even if all they get are points.

Loss Aversion People react to losses more strongly than gains and they try to prevent losses more than they try to make gains.

Social Proof People want to be like everyone else and are heavily influenced by what they perceive everyone else is doing.

Status Quo Bias People are very committed to keeping things the way that they are.

Pre-Commitment When people actively commit to a goal, they are more likely to achieve it.

Planning Fallacy When planning, people underestimate the resources needed to meet their goals (such as time or level of commitment).

Tunneling When faced with an emergency, people can only focus on the Regret & Counterfactuals emergency.

You Are What You Measure Satisfaction depends both on actual People repeat behaviors that are outcomes and ideas about what rewarded, regardless of whether could have happened. those behaviors lead to success.

Source: Behavioral Economics Principles, Common Cents Lab, drawings: Saara Suurla

7

SLOW AND FAST THINKING Source: Kahneman, 2002

• Let´s talk about things important to ourselves: ”How should our business be in 2028?”

Today

Fast thinking receives changes often as threats, wants to keep things as they are

Planning business opportunities / Project goals

Slow thinking produces better quality results & thoughts for the future

Future 2028

In our own business we are true experts!

When we get the chance we are often ready and excited to innovate the new.

When it is allowed to vision and dream, that is when the creative slow thinking starts 5/13/21

01

PREPARATION TOOLS

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX: WEAK SIGNALS CONCEPT 1

PREPARATION PHASE – COACHING BASED INTERVIEWS

Purpose: • To indentify the scope and participants for the workshop, understanding the client Duration: Amount of people: • 60 Min/ 1:1 interview1 plus 2-3 interviews Preparation: • Agree with the client on who to interviewing times, question list. During the first interview, the next 2-3 interviews can be agreed and planned.

Description & results: • 1:1 interview, gives good results for scoping the workshop and its participants in the best way.

Best practices: • Good moment to listen to the clients needs in general, too! Supports future collaboration possibilities a lot!

USING COACHING TO UNDERSTAND THE CONTEXT

1

The Client’s perspective

In the past, what has happened, what have you done so far, what have you experienced, what worked?

4

Assume it was positive for you, what did you achieve?

Any thoughts on how the event should take place?

Past

Future Who are the different stakeholders? How does each individual describe the situation?

2

Assume that NN participated at the workshop and had a good experience. What did he/she achieve?

Others’ perspective

3

Modified from sources: Tomm, K. (1988). Interventive interviewing: Part III. Intending to ask lineal, circular, reflexive and strategic questions? Family Process,1-15, 27. Kristian Dahl and Andreas Granhof Juhl (2009): The professional process consultant“, 37.

EXPLORING THE CONTEXT – THE INTERVIEW GUIDE The Client’s perspective • • • • •

Why here, why now?

What have you done so far?

What has worked so far? Not worked?

What have you invested up until now?

What is important for me to understand?

• • • •

45-60 MINUTES

Assume it was positive for you, what was the outcome?

Have you considered how this could be achieved?

How to move forward?

Assume we had a very good session, who would you have liked to invite? Someone we might consider to include?

Past

Future • •

• Who are the key persons?

How would NN describe the situation, if I was • talking to her/him? (Ask about each of • them) •

Let’s look into the future and assume we created a great workshop.

What would be a positive outcome for NN? What would NN like to have achieved at the workshop?

What would NN have liked have experienced at the workshop?

What could concrete successful results look like for NN six months after the workshop?

Others’ perspective Modified from sources: Tomm, K. (1988). Interventive interviewing: Part III. Intending to ask lineal, circular, reflexive and strategic questions? Family Process,1-15, 27. Kristian Dahl and Andreas Granhof Juhl (2009): The professional process consultant, 37.

02

STARTING TOOLS

13

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX

STARTING PHASE – SETTING THE SCENE, SCOPING AND MANDATE • Purpose: • Clear mandate, expectations from the responsible in charge. Why are we here, what do the project/workshop owner expect from gathering this group?

Duration: Amount of people: • 5 Min

5 min with 3-5 bullets

02

6-26

• Preparation: • One slide or poster with 3-5 bullets.

• Description & results: • Purpose, outcome, both in terms of results and experiental outcome.

• Best practices: • As facilitator you may wish to ensure that the bullets points are clear before the workshop.

• Make sure to write the bullets on a poster or whiteboard that can be revisited during the course of the workshop.

5/13/21

14

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX

STARTING PHASE – LEVELLING OF EXPECTATIONS • Purpose: • Levelling of expectations for the next hours

• Duration Amount of people: • 10-30 sec for each participant

6-26

• Preparation: • Formulation of the question: Imagine today’s workshop was very successful, imagine I meet you (3 months from now) and you smile, thinking about this workshop, why was it good, useful for you? What did you get out of this workshop?

7 min structured interview

• Description & results: • Ask everyone in the room, write down exactly what they say, wait for them to answer, also when they say ”everything has been said, ... but ”.

• Let the meeting owner share her/his expectations as the last person in the room, and comment on the expectations of the others.

• Present the workshop programme and flow, in view of the expectations.

• Best practices:

02

• Be able to adjust the program, if needed (if surprises show up that was not found during the preparatory interviews, but happens rarely).

• Give exact times for starting and ending the workshop as well as lunch breaks etc. But do not give exact schedule for the group process, just a list what all will be done  gives you the freedom as a facilitator to adjust the themes and ways of working along the way.

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15

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX

STARTING PHASE – WARMING UP WITH APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY DIALOGUES • Purpose: • To relax the participants, ”breaking the ice”. Creates relations, brings energy.

• Duration: Amount of people: • 5-7 min dialogue followed by 5-7 min plenary

5 min chat

6 - 26

• Preparation: • Verbal & written task

• Description & results: • Ask people to stand up and find a person in the room they know the least.

• Ask people to share their best positive personal experience about the topic from the past.

• When the time is up, ask and collect the experiences to a flip chart. Make people discuss the successes as well as challenges to define the workshop scope better together.

• Best practices:

02

• Before starting, explain people that as a facilitator you will rush the time if needed  they will allow you to do that without annoyance later on.

• When starting with the introductions, compliment and count how many years of experience you have in the room of the topic  emphasis on the democratic joint process.

• Demonstrate that people in the room are considered resourceful; there is wisdom in the room that we look forward to unfolding.

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ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX

STARTING PHASE – SCANNING FOR WEAK SIGNALS • Purpose: • Have participants look beyond strong drivers and trends and instead find weak signals of change that could impact the future of the topic under study.

• Duration: Amount of people: • Pre-work should take no more than 1-2 hoursAny number of participants

• Preparation: • Instructions and weak signals template to be provided to participants (see attachments)

5 min chat

02

• Description & results: • Circulate pre-work request to participants at least 1 week prior to workshop • Ask participants to bring the completed pre-work with them to the workshop

• Best practices: • This request should follow some type of level setting activity; perhaps a kick off meeting where the futures topic is introduced along with the foresight framework and the concept and value of weak signals • Level setting can also be achieved through circulation of material re: strategic foresight or future studies to give context to the activity • Not all participants will complete the pre-work assigned; facilitator will need to have a collection of signals of change that participants can select from once they arrive at the workshop • Encourage sourcing unique and novel ideas as much and as often as possible; people are most comfortable talking about what they know well; but here we want to talk about what no one knows well at all

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03

DURING TOOLS Concept 1: Weak signals workshop - Weak signals recognition prework and weak signals workshop concept

Concept 2: Shared vision workshop - Headlines, vision visualization, PESTEV, probability & impact, drivers of change

Concept 3: Renewal of present state strategy - Me-We-Us, SWOT, world café, mind mapping

18

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX DURING PHASE CONCEPT 1:

WEAK SIGNALS WORKSHOP • Purpose: • Explore weak signals of change that may impact the future of the topic under consideration. This work allows participants to become comfortable thinking and talking about future change.

Duration: Amount of people: • 90-120 Min 6-20

• Preparation: • Weak signals prework recommended (attachments) • You will need signals of change card decks, flip charts, markers and post it –stickers.

1-2h focus

• Description & results: • Working in small groups, round robin style ask each participant to share their signal of change (particiapnt pre-work); if they have not brought a signal with them have them draw one from a card deck • Facilitator will invite discussion; possible questions include: • • • • • •

Ask if any questions of clarification?

How novel is this signal? How unique is this signal?

How timely is this signal? Could this occur in next X number of years?

How impactful is this signal? What does this mean for the future of X? How plausible is this signal? Where can we look to learn more?

Any links or interactions with other signals?

• Repeat until all participants have presented and then challenge group to choose the most unique or novel signal discussed for presentation to the room • Prepare presenter to give 2-3 general impressions of the signal of change discussion. 5 minutes presentation max.

• Best practices:

03

• Don’t dwell on any one signal for too long. Budget time to ensure all get a chance to present their signal of change.

• Plausibility trumps probability. Don’t get caught up debating whether or not something is likely to happen; instead spend the time discussing the impacts if it did.

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19

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX DURING PHASE CONCEPT 2

NEWSPAPER HEADLINES

• Purpose: • Long term success insight for supporting vision creation

• Duration:

5 min warm-up

• 5 Min

Amount of people: 6-20

• Preparation: • You need post it-stickers, markers and a flip chart.

• Description & results: • Solo work: Ask people to ideate as many newspaper front page topics of success in 10 years time to post its.

• Group work: Collect the topics in a flip chart and group them together.

• Best practices:

03

• Use this practice to get people in the mood of long-term thinking and longterm success.

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20

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX DURING PHASE CONCEPT 2

VISUALIZING THE VISION

• Purpose: • Vizualising the vision into concrete tangible statues

• Duration: Amount of people: • 30 Min 6-20

30 min warm-up

• Preparation: • You need materials to build statues; foil, cardboard, legos etc.

• Description & results: • Solo work: Ask people to visualize their vision of success in 5-10 years time as a statue in 5 minutes.

• Use rest of the time to ask what was created. Give people something to point at the different parts of their statue.

• Write a post it or ask them to write a post it with one sentence explaining the essence of each vision statue.

• Best practices:

03

• Use this practice to get people in the mood of long-term thinking.

• A concrete way to make visions tangible. Gives insight in different thinking in the group.

• Good & useful questions are as well ”Build a good strategy”.

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21

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX DURING PHASE CONCEPT 2

PESTEV ANALYSIS

• Drivers of change prioritization together:

(P) Political

Laws, regulation, areal politics, states, EU, …

(E) Economical

Economical growth, markes, tazation, …

(S) Social

Demograpics, education, networks, cultural, …

(T) Technical

ICT, bio and nano tech, logistics, materials, …

(E) Ecological

Sustainable development, environment, …

(V) Values

Changes in values, ethics, …

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22

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX DURING PHASE CONCEPT 2

DRIVERS OF CHANGE EVALUATION PROPABILITY AND IMPACT • Start with Great impact box and continue working downwards Great Impact

Sure

Unsure

Small impact

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23

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX DURING PHASE CONCEPT 2

WHAT NEW CAN EMERGE FROM A DRIVER OF CHANGE AND A MEGATREND?

• Choose a theme x from your PESTEV-analysis, identify first the attractor to the inner circle and then combinations of them: ? ?

X1 X5 X3

? ?

? ?

X2 What future drivers of change can we recognize from the theme X?

X4

X.. n

? ?

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24

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX DURING PHASE CONCEPT 2

IMPACT ANALYSIS OF A DRIVER OF CHANGE

• Choose 10 kpl drivers of change from your PESTEV analysis and investingate their impact, one at a time:

Driver of change X Impact: - Enormous - Big - Average

Impacts in 3-5 years

Impacts in 6-15 years

Actions and preparation

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25

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX DURING PHASE CONCEPT 3

DIALOGUE ’ME-WE-US’

• Purpose: • To focus on the right things the right way while doing group work.

• Duration: Amount of people: • 60-120 Min 6-20

1-2h focus

• Preparation: • You need flip charts, markers and post it –stickers.

• Description & results: • Ask people to ideate the group work topic in small groups; first alone to post it –stickers and then saying what is on the post it one by one while attaching them to the flip chart.

• Ask people to discuss the groupings and topics for the groupings of their post it –stickers.

• Collect the results by writing them on a flip chart by asking people to share their most important finding and asking if other groups had similar results.

• Best practices:

03

• Use this practice to prioritize the important things to the top of the paper.

• Use this practice results to following steps in the workshop, like the scaling exercise or roadmap making.

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26

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX DURING PHASE CONCEPT 3

SWOT ANALYSIS

• Purpose: • Strategic planning method to understand extensive phenomena and the situation of present strategy.

• Duration: Amount of people: • 60 Min 6-15

• Preparation: • You need flip charts, markers and post it –stickers.

• Description & results:

1h focus

• SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats • 1. Take two sheets of paper. Draw a line down the centre of both of them. Put in Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats at the top of the columns.

2. State the issue that you are dealing with.

3. Take a few minutes and brainstorm individually in each of the columns.

4. When the group is done go around the table and get out items for (Internal) Strengths. Then Weakness. Then (External) Opportunities and Threats. Ask people to add new items rather than repeat the same item.

5. What are the key Strengths? Weaknesses? Opportunities? Threats?

6. We want to divide into team and each team will write sentences describing their key items in sentence form and give illustrations or examples from real life.

7. When they are finished ask them to read their sentences out to the group.

8. We are not interested in editing the sentences but more check the content. Are there any suggestions about the content?

9. Move to the next sentence.

• Best practices: • Use this practice to get participants agreeing on the present state situation and what impacts the present state the most.

• Use this practice to prioritize the important things.

• Use the World Café method to strengthen the results of the SWOT.

03

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27

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX DURING PHASE CONCEPT 3

MIND MAPPING

• Purpose: Idea Subtopic Idea Idea

Idea

Topic Subtopic

1-2h focus

• Strategic planning method to renew present strategy.

• Duration: Amount of people: • 60-120 Min 6-15

Subtopic Idea

• Preparation: • You need flip charts, markers and post it –stickers.

• Description & results: • Use the results of the SWOT to create new future success criteria for 2025.

• Solo work: Let people ideate the topics and subtopics of different themes.

• Use group work (Me-We-Us) and World Cafe to ideate the mind maps further.

• Best practices: • Creates good understanding to topics and their interrelations.

• Does not automatically create a new strategy; use e.g. the scaling exercise to make the strategy steps concrete.

03

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04

ENDING TOOLS

29

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX

ENDING PHASE – EVALUATION TOOL • Purpose: • To get feedback on the workshop and its outcomes

• Duration: Amount of people: • 5 Min

6-26

• Preparation:

5 min feedback

• You need post it-stickers and markers

• Description & results: • Ask people to think alone and write down the most important outcome of the workshop. Then ask people to read them out loud.

• Collect the post it –stickers then for the summary purposes.

• Best practices: • Make 2-3 exercises like this by finding out more how the expectations of participants were met and what was important in the joint results.

• Make people read loud what they write in order to keep the feedback round short and compact.

04

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05

AFTER TOOLS

31

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FACILITATION TOOLBOX

AFTER AND FOLLOW-UP PHASE – SCALING TOOL • Purpose: • Give feedback on the situation where the topic at hand is and where to improve.

!

1



• Duration: Amount of people: • 45 Min 6-26

10

• Preparation: • You need a big white paper A0 size on the wall.

• Description & results: • The scaling exercise • Ask people to rate from 1 to 10 the topic at hand by marking it to abig arrow you have drawn to the paper.

• Ask everyone why they did not give one score lower points and write it down the paper.

Ask then everyone what it would take for them to give one score higher points and write it above the paper. You get strengths and constructive feedback listed.

• Best practices:

05

• Make an exercise about the best possible outcome before this and put them to this exercise as score no 10 results. You get good roadmap material how to get there.

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C OUTCOMES • The expected outcomes of the concepts are, in short: • Concept 1: Weak signals workshop  Weak signals recognition strengthening, impact & propability crystallation.

• Concept 2: Shared vision workshop  Renewal of vision, impact analysis of drivers of change.

• Concept 3: Renewal of present state strategy  Renewal of present strategy and it´s future success criteria-

• Concept 4: Deep grinding of chosen themes  Toolbox version 2.0  Deep diving into critical disruptive themes for future success.

• Concept 5: Stress tested strategy by alternative futures  Toolbox version 2.0  Using future foresight facilitation methods to improve & crystallize present strategy.

CONTACT US IAF – International Association of Facilitators Global Headquarters: Suite 200, 411 Richmond Street East Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5A 3S5 Ph:(647) 346-3336 x 234 E-mail: office@iaf-world.org

https://www.iaf-world.org/