Scenario planning has developed as a tool for making decisions under uncertainty. They present a set of possible futures and a set of accompanying descriptions. The described scenarios are not necessarily the most probable ones, but are intended to be plausible and coherent and are designed to challenge prevailing ideas and provoke investigations into what could happen.
One obvious use for scenarios is to take those potential futures and to prepare plans for each of the scenarios. COVID19 has if nothing else, demonstrated how critical preparation can be for even the most unlikely scenarios.
During the 1970s Shell began utilising scenarios as they put it…
“to identify emerging global challenges and to guide us through change…” *
The creative scenario process helped Shell to foresee the possibility of an oil shock and because Shell had prepared for this, they were better able to manage this period of uncertainty.
Scenarios anchored in data.
Signpost is an evolution of an effective methodology and layers on new technology and methodologies to generate scenarios anchored in data. Anticipating the future is a central component of any strategy and to ensure that forecast future is as representative as possible, we are able to inject expert opinion into the models.
Our clustering algorithm can not only identify scenarios in the data, they also give a probability for each of the scenarios. Scenarios are not intended to be precise forecasts, they are intended to explore a set of possible futures – where Signpost adds richness to scenarios is that we can see what drives each future, providing clues about what precedes a given scenario and see the timing of any event.
Develop, modify and monitor strategy ongoing.
With the regular data updates you can see which of these clues become leading indicators. Signpost has a suite of tools that allow strategists to develop, modify and monitor strategy ongoing. Signpost scenarios are external facing, they allow you to get a handle on factors outside the organisations control, progressively reducing uncertainty, something that is important to any strategist.
