Articles

Environmental scanning is the lifeblood of Strategic Foresight. It provides the qualitative and quantitative data points that inform maps of possible futures from which decisions and strategies will be formed. 

Clare Cooper, design lecturer at the University of Sydney, describes how futuring techniques can help us think collectively and build agency, particularly when we feel it is slipping away.

This study showcases the value, in terms of practical impact and tangible outcomes, that foresight drives in change.

Change management efforts often fail because they focus on the issues as they bubble up to the surface. This results in Band-Aid solutions that fail to address the underlying culture and guiding narratives of an organization.

The Futures School founders Yvette Montero Salvatico and Frank Spencer authored the chapter “Disney’s Workforce of the Future: From HR Initiative to Organizational Culture” in Palgrave Macmillan’s Futures Thinking and Organizational Policy: Case Studies for Managing Rapid Change in Technology, Globalization and Workforce Diversity.

In this vlog, Kedge Principal and The Futures School Co-Founder Yvette Montero Salvatico interviews Joana Lenkova, former Consumer Strategist at The Walt Disney Company and Founder of Futures Forward. They discuss Joana’s time on the futures team at The Walt Disney Company, the evolving field of strategy, and an announcement about The Futures School London!

The following case study showcases the value, in terms of practical impact and tangible outcomes, that foresight drives in innovation. Situation With a series of product misses, the research and development (R&D) division of a Fortune 500 hospitality company was struggling to create breakthrough innovation.

Today, we live in a world where creative destruction is happening faster than we can react. Whether the radical changes are in products, services, experiences, technology, or organizational models, we seem to have entered an age of perpetual instability in business and society where the new mantra is “disrupt or be disrupted.” What if we could build proactive organizations that aren’t constantly in the act of chasing or being chased?

Long before the current craze around unconscious bias modeling, foresight professionals were using futures thinking as a critical element in breaking through assumptions and biases to create organizational, cultural, and workforce development and change.

In order to understand why I have such a strong passion for foresight, it’s helpful to get a glimpse into my background. For 15 years, I worked internationally in the field of Marketing, Innovation and Business Strategy across different FMCG, Finance and Entertainment blue-chip companies (AB InBev, Societe Generale, Disney), as well as successfully growing start-ups. Most recently, I held a Consumer Strategy role at The Walt Disney Company. Working in a highly analytic strategy job yet experiencing a passion…