Back to the Future: History and the Diagnosis of Environmental Context

Abstract

Traditionally, scenario thinking has been a planning tool used for improving foresight by generating alternative stories of future contexts. Such stories should enable organizations to develop better contemporary strategies and policies. However, scenario thinking has been charged with a failure to identify weak signals in contextual environments, thereby placing its strategic reputation in the balance. In this paper, we examine the scenario-building process, expose the weaknesses inherent therein, and suggest remedies for improving the strategic narrative. In particular, we investigate the linkages between scenario thinking into the past—referred to as counterfactual reasoning in psychology—and scenario thinking into the future, and their role in generating and understanding context as an emergent phenomenon. The concept of causal fields is adapted from anthropology as a diagnostic technique for assessing the weak cues to causality that influence the generation of alternative contexts. Its incorporation into the scenario method is proposed as a partial solution to the previous travails of scenario thinking.