Futures Thinking: The Basics

The first in an occasional series about the tools and methods for thinking about the future in a structured, useful way.

For nearly the past fifteen years, I’ve been working as a futurist. My job has been to provide people with insights into emerging trends and issues, to allow them to do their jobs better. I’ve done this work for big companies and government agencies (usually under the Very Professional sounding title of strategic foresight), and for TV writers and game companies. It’s quite an enjoyable job, as it allows me to indulge my easily-distracted curiosity about the world.

Fortunately, it’s also a job with some definite practical uses. Futurism as it’s practiced today doesn’t try to predict the future, but rather to illuminate unexpected implications of present-day issues; the emphasis isn’t on what will happen, but on what could happen, given various observed drivers. It’s a way of getting new perspectives and context for present-day decisions, as well as for dealing with the dilemma at the heart of all strategic thinking: the future can’t be predicted, yet we have to make choices based on what is to come.

But if futures thinking is so important, why don’t more people do it?

One answer is that they don’t know how. So let’s change that. This post, and subsequent posts in this series, will help to explain basic methods of structured futures thinking. You won’t become a professional futurist overnight, but you will start to ask new questions about the world, and start to see bigger implications of events and choices.

Most futures projects, whether informal or professional, follow a similar pattern: Asking the Question; Scanning the World; Mapping the Possibilities; and Asking the Next Question…

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