From Darkness to Light: How Metro de Santiago Embraced Foresight to Navigate Uncertainty
“From Darkness to Light” highlights the journey of Metro de Santiago (Metro), the public transportation system in Santiago, Chile to transform its approach to planning and decision-making in response to significant disruptions caused by social unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Facing Unprecedented Challenges
In 2019, a fare increase triggered widespread protests, with Metro becoming a focal point of public anger and experiencing significant damage to its infrastructure. This event, coupled with the operational impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, created a volatile and uncertain environment for the organization. Metro recognized the need for a new approach to navigate these complexities and ensure its long-term sustainability.
Embracing Foresight
To address these challenges, Metro partnered with TFSX to integrate a futures thinking approach into its operations. The aim was to move beyond traditional planning methods and embrace a more holistic and agile framework to anticipate and respond to change.
“It’s painful to remember the destruction of our stations and then the emptiness due to city lockdown because of COVID-19 measures. Both events strongly impacted us and left us in the most uncertain and volatile environment, alone in the dark, trying to find our way out.”
Yvannia Artus, Assistant Manager of Planning and Development, Metro de Santiago
Metro leadership recognized that foresight could provide the tools to navigate the uncertainty and shape a preferred future.
Implementing Natural Foresight®
Metro adopted the Natural Foresight® framework, an action-based approach to building futures thinking. This framework emphasizes a cyclical and organic process that involves:
- Discovering assumptions and biases
- Exploring trends and insights
- Mapping narratives and landscapes
- Creating integration and outcomes
Metro implemented Natural Foresight® through a phased approach, involving a dedicated Futures Planning Team, executive sponsorship, stakeholder interviews, and a gap analysis survey. This participatory process ensured buy-in from key stakeholders and facilitated the integration of foresight into existing institutional processes.
Scenario Development
A core element of Metro’s foresight journey was the development of a suite of scenarios that explored the “Future of Interconnected Opportunities” in 2035. These scenarios were built using an inductive approach based on four natural archetypes:
- Rethink and Transform
- Continue and Extend
- Remember and Recapture
- Decline and Collapse
The scenarios provided a rich and immersive exploration of potential futures, considering various social, technological, environmental, economic, and political forces.
Scenario Planning and Strategic Action
The scenarios served as a foundation for scenario planning, enabling Metro to:
- Identify potential threats and opportunities
- Test the resilience of current strategies
- Develop new strategic initiatives
Through a series of workshops, Metro leadership used scenario planning tools to define key opportunity spaces and backcast from their preferred futures to develop concrete action plans.
“When you travel to the future, it is a journey to something unknown, of course, and it could be frightening or even scary. But when you do it as a team, I think the expedition can switch from darkness to light …”
– Rubén Alvarado, CEO, Metro de Santiago
Transformational Outcomes
Metro’s foresight initiative led to a number of transformative outcomes, including:
- A dedicated foresight team that continuously scans the external environment.
- The identification of new strategic areas of focus.
- Proposals for innovative services aligned with a human-centric vision.
- Sustained commitment to foresight through organizational policies and leadership support.
The case study demonstrates how Strategic Foresight can empower organizations to move beyond reactive planning and embrace a proactive and future-oriented approach to decision-making.
To learn more about Metro de Santiago’s inspiring foresight journey and the details of its implementation process, read the full case study authored by Nicole Baker Rosa and Ashley Bowers.
