In a fast paced world of more disruptive changes and connected challenges, leaders and their organizations are searching for new ways to survive and succeed. Many different approaches to scenario planning have emerged in the last few decades. This book introduces the distinctive approach to scenario planning that the three authors have together developed in the University of Oxford over the last dozen years: the Oxford Scenario Planning Approach (OSPA). The OSPA is distinctive in helping leaders and strategists realize their role in using scenarios in planning to enable their organizations to ... More

In a fast paced world of more disruptive changes and connected challenges, leaders and their organizations are searching for new ways to survive and succeed. Many different approaches to scenario planning have emerged in the last few decades. This book introduces the distinctive approach to scenario planning that the three authors have together developed in the University of Oxford over the last dozen years: the Oxford Scenario Planning Approach (OSPA). The OSPA is distinctive in helping leaders and strategists realize their role in using scenarios in planning to enable their organizations to learn faster and better about changing conditions. This contrasts with the conventional approach to strategy which relies on knowing about the future. In following the OSPA approach to engage TUNA conditions (turbulence, uncertainty, novelty, and ambiguity), planners can find ways to create their future, identify new challenges, and avoid missing unprecedented opportunities. The OSPA enables strategists and policymakers to become more capable and flexible futures thinkers and, more importantly, to realize the value of this in rethinking what is going on and what can and should be done. The core emphasis in the OSPA is on the role of scenarios in supporting a cycle of prospective sensemaking that involves framing and reframing future contexts to enhance the exercising—indeed, the quality—of leadership judgment, enable reperception of possibilities, and, in turn, clarify strategic choices and identify more and better options. The book also explains theory and reviews methodological choices.