Can a guy be Pythia?
The famed Walt Disney once said, “Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.” While he was not speaking about Cyber and IT, I believe he was speaking about one of his parks, it still holds when looking at how IT and Cyber may move forward. You look back at what has happened and the projection, see what you know tomorrow has in store, and fantasies about what the future is going to bring. We don’t call it fantasizing though, we call it projecting. In our fantasizing of the future, we have options such as scenario planning and traditional forecasting. Let’s compare and contrast these concepts. Also, it is no longer weather forecasting, it’s weather fantasizing, spread the word.
First, in the words of my son, “What’s that?” So what is Scenario Planning? If you are (un)lucky enough to have had the opportunity to read Scenario Planning: A Field Guide to the Future by Woody Wade (Wade, 2012), the author would tell you on page 10 not to forecast the future, but to anticipate it. This is a methodology that lets you visualize (fantasies) about a “range of alternative futures” with each possible future referred to as a scenario. With some basic math, Scenario = possible future, and with Transitive Property of Mathematics we can say that Scenario Planning = Possible Future Planning. With this method, the idea of a most likely future is thrown out with the wash water. It is a way to not put all your eggs in one basket but to plan for multiple possibilities. The object is to “open your eyes” to what the future may hold.
Now if you take a look at Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change by Joe Tidd and John Bessant(Tidd, 2018), section 9.2 starts out with the encouraging statement “Forecasting the future has a pretty bad track record but nevertheless has a central role in business planning for innovation.” To me, that sounds like “Betting your life savings gambling has a pretty bad track record but is central to a good Vegas trip.” The literature goes on to state seven (7) different methods to magic eight ball tomorrow, “trend extrapolation”, “product and technology road mapping”, “regression, econometric models, and simulation”, “customer and marketing methods”, “Benchmarking”, “Delphi and experts”, and “Scenarios”. Each one has its own use, with time frames varying from short-term to long-term. Each has its own limitations. For example, I am going to use Delphi and experts, because then I can be Pythia (The Oracle of Delphi). Bad joke, let’s move on. This method use is long-term with consensus building. Its limitations are the expense, and the experts can disagree or not come to a consensus. Thinking of Wall Street, tons of experts, not that many billionaires.
What it comes down to between these seems to be scope. One is narrowly focused, the other likes to present multiple options. With further literary review, I am sure that I can see how to leverage one inside the other, but that is for another post down the road.
References
Tidd J., & Bessant J. (2018). Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change, Enhanced eText. [Colorado Technical University (CTU)]. Retrieved from https://coloradotech.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781119379416/
Wade, W. (2012). Scenario Planning. [Colorado Technical University (CTU)]. Retrieved from https://coloradotech.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118237410/
First, in the words of my son, “What’s that?” So what is Scenario Planning? If you are (un)lucky enough to have had the opportunity to read Scenario Planning: A Field Guide to the Future by Woody Wade (Wade, 2012), the author would tell you on page 10 not to forecast the future, but to anticipate it. This is a methodology that lets you visualize (fantasies) about a “range of alternative futures” with each possible future referred to as a scenario. With some basic math, Scenario = possible future, and with Transitive Property of Mathematics we can say that Scenario Planning = Possible Future Planning. With this method, the idea of a most likely future is thrown out with the wash water. It is a way to not put all your eggs in one basket but to plan for multiple possibilities. The object is to “open your eyes” to what the future may hold.
Now if you take a look at Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change by Joe Tidd and John Bessant(Tidd, 2018), section 9.2 starts out with the encouraging statement “Forecasting the future has a pretty bad track record but nevertheless has a central role in business planning for innovation.” To me, that sounds like “Betting your life savings gambling has a pretty bad track record but is central to a good Vegas trip.” The literature goes on to state seven (7) different methods to magic eight ball tomorrow, “trend extrapolation”, “product and technology road mapping”, “regression, econometric models, and simulation”, “customer and marketing methods”, “Benchmarking”, “Delphi and experts”, and “Scenarios”. Each one has its own use, with time frames varying from short-term to long-term. Each has its own limitations. For example, I am going to use Delphi and experts, because then I can be Pythia (The Oracle of Delphi). Bad joke, let’s move on. This method use is long-term with consensus building. Its limitations are the expense, and the experts can disagree or not come to a consensus. Thinking of Wall Street, tons of experts, not that many billionaires.
What it comes down to between these seems to be scope. One is narrowly focused, the other likes to present multiple options. With further literary review, I am sure that I can see how to leverage one inside the other, but that is for another post down the road.
References
Tidd J., & Bessant J. (2018). Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change, Enhanced eText. [Colorado Technical University (CTU)]. Retrieved from https://coloradotech.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781119379416/
Wade, W. (2012). Scenario Planning. [Colorado Technical University (CTU)]. Retrieved from https://coloradotech.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118237410/
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