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Crazy Futures: Why Plausibility is Maladaptive

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  • Infinite Futures: foresight research and training.

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An exploration of the meaning and uses of 'plausibility' as an evaluative criterion in foresight and the extent to which it hobbles futures thinking. Plausibility is judged against current assumptions about the issue in question and its context. Those assumptions are often implicit and unexamined, and may be inappropriate given dynamic change, a different worldview or value set, or the potential of disruptive discoveries.
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Crazy Futures: Why Plausibility is Maladaptive
Wendy Schultz
Bio: Wendy Schultz is the Director of Infinite Futures and a Senior Fellow of the
Center for Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies. She also serves as Vice-President
for Training of Vision Foresight Strategy LLC, is a principal of SAMI Consulting, the
Emergentista for LASA Development, and a Fellow of the World Futures Studies
Federation. Her primary focus in futures research is designing innovative
participatory futures methods.
One person's craziness is another person's reality.
- Tim Burton
What are crazy futures; and why do we need them? Let me answer this question by
considering both words: ‘crazy’, as contrasted with ‘normal’ generally and then
specifically with ‘plausibility’ as a term of art over-used in futures and foresight
practice, especially scenario planning; and ‘futures’, that is images of non-existent,
forward temporally displaced situations and contexts and their generation, especially
as contributing to perceptions of ‘craziness’. In the process, I will also explore the
notions of complexity and chaos, and what they imply for the usefulness of crazy
futures in contrast to plausible futures.
What is ‘crazy’?
* Crazy * music, dudes and dudettes! …he’s * crazy * about his dog / fishing /
iPad… You want to go bungee-jumping? Are you * crazy *?
The first known use of ‘crazy’ was in 1566 (Merriam-Webster). It originally meant
‘full of cracks or flaws’ – that is, like the glaze on a pot can be ‘crazed’ with cracks.
The meaning ‘of unsound mind, or behaving as so,’ emerged later, in the early 1600s.
The jazz slang sense of crazy as ‘cool’ or ‘exciting’ sprang up in the late 1920s
(clearly what we mean when we call ourselves ‘crazy futurists’). Nowadays it often
means simply out of the ordinary, unusual – or impractical. So we need to think about
two aspects of the term: first, being flawed, unsound, or broken mentally; and second,
being unusual, and out of the ordinary. In the last 400 years, both physiological and
psychological research have resulted in significant progress in our understanding of
the full range of illnesses and syndromes that contribute to a broad range of mental
perspectives and resulting behaviours that observers might label ‘crazy.’ Those
illnesses cause serious pain to both sufferers and their loved ones, and this discussion
in no way is meant to downplay that.
But judging behaviour as ‘crazy’ is subjectively relative. When I was a child and
walking down the street and the person coming towards me was talking to herself out
loud, I would very likely cross the street to avoid her. Now we are all surrounded by
crowds of people ‘talking to themselves’ – and no longer consider it ‘crazy’ because it
is contextually appropriate in an era of mobile phone earpieces. It is neither unusual
behaviour, nor out of the ordinary, given a specific technological setting. The same
applies, of course, to different cultural settings: flooding a bathroom by using the
shower hose outside of the stall is ‘crazy’ behaviour in the USA but perfectly rational
in Japan, where the bathing room has a drain in the floor, and one is expected to be
clean before entering the bath.
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So if we define ‘crazy’ by contrast with ‘normal’, then it is the unusual as contrasted
against the usual. ‘Crazy’ is subjectively relative to internal expectations filtered and
biased by milieu, culture, and technological setting, among other things. That is
precisely its utility to futures thinking. ‘Crazy’ – and the sense of nervous
apprehension it engenders in viewers – highlights and problematizes the assumptions
and points of view that compose the normal. If the various futures we face are
composed of surprises, of novelty – of the abnormal – then crazy is just what we
need: it exposes our blind spots, the dangerous limitations of our assumptions.
But a more specific new antonym to ‘crazy’ has emerged in futures practice in the last
few decades. Rather than opposing crazy with ‘normal,’ it equates ‘crazy’ with
‘impossible’, and opposes it with ‘plausible’.
What is ‘plausible’?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Inigo Montoya to Vizzini, in The Princess Bride
In the early 80’s Roy Amara gave us a classic conceptualization of the set of all
images of the future as roughly divisible into possible, probable, and preferred
(Amara, 1981). This was useful because it was robust: possible was the set of
everything – every future possible to imagine, whether or not they had already been
imagined; probable was monitorable, if not measurable – researchers could observe
emerging issues growing in momentum, becoming trends, evolving into greater
probability; and preferable was articulable – researchers could engage stakeholders in
value discussions and judgements and essentially map the value territory. In Venn
diagram terms, the categories overlap, but are still useful as a conceptual base for
futures research methods.
Yet somehow over the intervening decades, the terms have morphed to ‘possible,
plausible, probable, and preferable futures’. Ruud van der Helm carefully explores
operational definitions that distinguish possible, probable, and plausible (van der
Helm, 2006). He reviews both objective probability (based on the repeatability of
systems) and subjective probability (based on personal or group utility functions); and
also offers distinctions between absolute possibility (based on the known laws of
reality) and contingent possibility (based on capabilities at given points on a time
horizon). Van der Helm then contrasts both of these with plausibility, due to its
intrinsically subject-related nature based on judgment and conviction. The challenge
for futures practice is “to develop futures that are indeed ‘equally plausible’ but
sensibly different (van der Helm, 2006, p26) in order to present convincing
alternatives for exploration.
Sometimes the wide and woolly set of ‘possible’ drops entirely from the field of view,
and only ‘probable, plausible, and preferable’ futures remain. Ramirez and Selin
suggest that as futures studies, foresight, and scenario planning evolved, probability
evaluations became a key evaluative criterion for forecasters focussed on predictive
capability, where plausibility became the hallmark for exploratory practitioners
focussed on appreciating alternative futures (Ramirez and Selin, 2014). ‘Plausibility’
has emerged as a primary operating assumption, even a criterion for excellence,
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within English-speaking scenario practice (especially within the community of
‘scenario planners’).
Here is a partial inventory of the evidence:
‘To be effective, scenarios must be plausible, consistent and offer insights into the
future. … Plausibility: A scenario must be plausible. This means that it must fall
within the limits of what might conceivably happen.’ (FORLEARN, 2005)
From Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight, ‘plausible
futures: reasonable outcomes, with a discernible pathway from the present to the
future. For example, discovering extra-terrestrial life within the next decade is
possible, but not plausible.’ (Bishop and Hines, 2006, p128)
From Creating Futures: ‘scenarios are only credible and useful if they meet the
following five conditions that we believe instil rigor: relevance, coherence,
plausibility, importance and transparency.’ (Godet, 2001, p63)
From Scenario Planning: ‘Scenarios are vivid descriptions of plausible futures.’
(Lindgren and Holden, 2003, p 22)
From The Scenario Planning Handbook: ‘scenarios must meet the following
criteria: they must be plausible – that is, they must fall within the limits of what
might reasonably be expected to happen.’ (Ralston and Wilson, 2006, p 121)
From Scenarios for Success: ‘A scenario is a self-consistent account of one
plausible way in which uncertain future events may play out with a bearing on the
future of an organization and its ability to fulfil its purpose.’ (Sharpe and van her
Heijden, 2003, p 57)
From the Neville Freeman Agency: ‘Scenario planning is a metaphor-rich
narrative designed to help you consider alternative, plausible futures.’ (Freeman,
2009)
‘Selecting a scenario space means examining the various future states the drivers
could produce. Illogical and non-plausible situations should be rejected.
Selecting alternative worlds to be detailed involves limiting the number of future
stories, since it would be impossible to explore every option. The key is to select
plausible futures that will challenge current thinking.’ (Chermack, Lynham,
Ruona, 2001, p20).
From ‘When and How to Use Scenario Planning’: ‘the scenarios should bound
the range of plausible uncertainties and challenge managerial thinking.’
(Shoemaker, 1991, p549)
‘Scenarios are possible future states of the world that represent alternative
plausible conditions under different assumptions.’ (Mahmoud et al., 2009, p798)
Let me emphasise the first two of these quotes because they clarify the matter by
offering a definition and an example of plausibility. FOR-LEARN suggests that a
plausible scenario ‘must fall within the limits of what might conceivably happen.’
The authors of Thinking About the Future suggest that plausible futures offer
‘reasonable outcomes, with a discernible pathway from the present to the future.’
They further clarify with an example: ‘discovering extra-terrestrial life within the next
decade is possible, but not plausible.’
The difficulty with both of these lies in the subjective capability and state of
knowledge of the viewer: the more knowledgeable the viewer on the topic of the
scenario, or its component details, the more events and futures they are capable of
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conceiving as something that could ‘conceivably happen.’ In the example of
discovering extra-terrestrial life, the scenario is possible, but perhaps of low
probability. But it is in fact plausible, because discernible pathways exist not only for
the evolution of extra-terrestrial life, but also for our potential discovery of it (given
the various robotic surveys of other planets we have launched recently).
Defining ‘plausibility’ is problematic. This limits its usefulness as a criterion for
excellence in futures thinking, even assuming that it is an appropriate criterion for
excellence. So let’s hit the dictionaries once again: what is the technical definition of
‘plausible,’ and what is its etymology? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary tells us that
plausible means:
superficially fair, reasonable, or valuable but often
specious <a plausible pretext>; superficially pleasing or persuasive <a
swindler… , then a quack, then a smooth, plausible gentleman — R. W.
Emerson>; appearing worthy of belief <the argument was both powerful
and plausible>.
Embedded within the structure of this word is the professional vulnerability that all
futures researchers face in practicing an intellectual discipline for which there are no
future facts, in a world of decision-makers hungry for an evidence base: how to
appear valuable when we are suspected of purveying specious results and being
quacks. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) entry is even more telling, in offering
us the older, now obsolete uses of the word, all of which revolve around pleasing the
public and thereby winning approval:
Acceptable, agreeable, pleasing, gratifying; winning public approval,
popular. Obs.; Expressing applause or approbation; plausive, applausive. Obs.
; Deserving of applause or approval; praiseworthy, laudable,
commendable. Obs.; Of an argument, an idea, a statement, etc.: seeming
reasonable, probable, or truthful; convincing, believable;
(formerly) spec. having a false appearance of reason or veracity; specious. Of
a person: convincing or persuasive, esp. with the intention to deceive.
The OED then clarifies current uses, suggesting that plausible ideas seem reasonable
or probable – while pointing out that it formerly implied that such an appearance of
reason was false. Furthermore, when applied to a person, it ‘still’ implies an intention
to deceive cloaked in false persuasion.
Why do I dwell on these historical facts of etymological evolution at such length? My
observations of how consultants use the label ‘plausible scenarios’, or ‘plausible
futures’, suggest that it is actually code for ‘don’t give the clients crazy futures, or
they’ll reject them, reject us, and we won’t get paid and will never work in this town
again’. How often in strategic foresight projects do the end results offer truly
transformational futures that challenge participants to consider the possibilities of
deep structural change? How often do scenarios create ‘productive discomfort’ in
how people see the world (Ramirez and Selin, 2014, p67)? Of worlds with entirely
different economic or political systems? Of usefully crazy futures?
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What are ‘futures’ – and why and how do we think about them?
While scenario thinking per se originated in Herman Kahn’s policy strategy concerns
(Kahn, 1962), the origin of futures thinking is rooted in the image of the future, and
concerns of futurist Fred Polak for the vitality of human culture and civilizations
(Polak, 1961). We shouldn’t limit the ‘futures’ in ‘crazy futures’ to strategic scenarios
alone. Such purpose-designed images of the future compete for mental and emotional
space with a nearly endless supply of images of the future generated across human
activity. Imagining long-range futures is a talent unique to our species – so what
images do we create, how do we create them, and what are they for?
Futures studies as an intellectual endeavour includes the inventory and content
analysis of existing images of the future. Humans express imagined futures in all
media, as all variety of cultural constructs, and in varying scales of personal and
civilizational usefulness. Images of the future in advertisements, counselling
programs, and in daydreams target personal behaviour by expressing self-fulfilling or
self-defeating prophecies. In the same way, community, organizational, and political
futures attempt to inspire group action through both cautionary tales (‘doom and
gloom’; nightmare futures), and through aspirational tomorrows (visions). Images of
the future are embedded in all political discourses and ideologies, whether they warn
of imminent national collapse at the hands of the opposition (nightmare futures), call
for ‘Holding the course! Steady on!’ (present-trends-extended futures), or depict a
happy era to come (Conservatives: A return to the Golden Age! Liberals: An All-New
Brighter Tomorrow!). At the largest scale, Polak’s call for aspirational, transformative
images of the future was meant to catalyse civilization-level vitality.
But categorizing any specific image of the future as a nightmare or a vision is entirely
subjective. Furthermore, it is a subjective judgment that can generate tragedies.
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Conflicts arise when people fear a nightmare future is the hidden goal of others
around them. And any extreme of difference is labelled ‘crazy,’ whether it is
extremely good, extremely bad, or extremely different.
We could probably conceptualize a craziness scale for futures, anchored at
sanity/normality/plausibility on the one end, and ‘completely bug@%$@ crazy’ at the
other extreme. It might be operationalized as the percentage of any given population
that perceives a specific image of the future as offensively, scarily transgressive and
transformative beyond all bounds of reason and decency. If nobody feels the future is
beyond all bounds, it’s normal and plausible as normal can be. If 50% of the people
feel it’s beyond all bounds of reason and decency, and the other 50% do not, then it’s
only moderately crazy. And so on.
It is not just the image itself that is judged. ‘Crazy futures’ often earn that label,
despite being prosaic and mundane in content, if they have transgressed in process.
The current decision-making environment for many economic, political, and social
issues is instrumentalist, evidence-based and biased towards Western empiricism.
Sadly, a field that engages in research despite lacking an ability to observe its subject
directly (until such time as tachyon-powered time machines or traversable wormholes
enable field research in the futures) often lacks credibility as well. In a previous essay,
I summarised this ‘cultural contradiction’ (Schultz, 2006) between the criteria for
excellence in empirical, evidence-based research, and for excellence in futures
research (specifically horizon scanning), as follows:
Empirical/
Evidence-based Research
Futures Research,
especially emerging issues scanning & analysis
Credible;
Documented;
Authoritative;
Statistically
significant;
Coherent: the data
agree;
Consensus-based:
the experts agree;
Theoretically
grounded; and
Mono-disciplinary.
Any emerging issue unusual enough to be useful
will probably lack apparent credibility;
it will be difficult to document, as only one or two
cases of the change may yet exist;
it will emerge from marginalized populations, and
be noticed initially by fringe sources, hardly the
sort of authoritative sources that civil servants feel
confident in citing;
as emerging issues are by definition only one or
two cases, they are also by definition statistically
insignificant;
the data will vary widely, converging over time
only if the emerging issue matures into a trend;
not only will consensus be lacking, but experts
will often violently attack reports of emerging
issues of change, as they represent challenges to
current paradigms and structures of expertise,
power, and entitlement;
emerging issues of change often challenge
previous theoretical structures and necessitate the
construction of new theories;
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Empirical/
Evidence-based Research
Futures Research,
especially emerging issues scanning & analysis
and the most interesting new change emerges
where disciplines converge and clash. As the
impacts ripple out across all the systems of reality,
emerging changes and their impacts require a
multi-disciplinary analytic perspective.
Bishop, Hines, and Collins have produced inventories of formal futures methods for
generating images of the future – both scenarios (extrapolations) and visions (value-
based preferred future articulations) – and described almost two dozen rigorously
structured processes (Bishop, Hines, and Collins, 2007). These range from logical
and quantitative methods using statistical trend extrapolation, computer-aided cross-
impact matrices, and systems dynamics modelling, through facilitated group process
dialogue, to meditative, ‘guided visualization’ techniques. Evidence-based decision
support cultures prefer their futures heavily salted with data and quantitative
extrapolation. They are likely to shy away from guided visualization workshops. So
decision-makers, observers – and practitioners – also judge some means of generating
futures as ‘crazy’. Generally, the more intuitive methods are greeted with the most
scepticism and distrust.
Scenario planners and scenario builders are not alone in devising images of the future.
Artists, advertisers, novelists, screenwriters, animators, sculptors, analysts, and
leaders all generate stories, images, and artefacts expressing different future outcomes
and environments. So do prophets, astrologers, tea-leaf readers, shamans, and
particularly skilled remote viewers. By extension, if rigorous but intuitive tools such
as guided visualization earn scepticism, artistic inspiration may as well – and
astrologers, shamans, and remote viewers earn outright derision.
Why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t we just discard images of the future generated
by ‘crazy’ methods such as astrological computations and shamanic trances and
remote viewing? To answer that we must return to the conceptual foundations and
core assumptions of futures studies as a field of research, which include three basic
axioms:
1. There is not one single future, but multiple alternative futures;
2. People’s beliefs about the future, and their images of the future, affect their
decisions and actions, which in turn create the futures as an emergent property of
aggregated interconnected actions;
3. Because any given lived future at any given moment is an emergent property of a
complex system that frequently exhibits chaotic behaviour, it is not possible to
‘predict’ human futures.
It follows from these axioms that it is not important which image of the future is
correct, or best supported by empirically credible data, or most plausible. The most
important future is the future the greatest number of people believe the most: it is the
future on which they are basing their decisions and actions. If people read astrological
forecasts or tea leaves or goat entrails, and then act on those images of the future, then
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those images of the future are important for us as futures researchers to consider. The
craziest methods can generate compelling futures, and crazy or not, compelling
futures are the futures that should concern us the most.
Given that societies and cultures contain multiple sources of novel ideas and crazy
futures, critical analysis of existing images of the future should be a cornerstone of
comprehensive futures research. When researchers move beyond content analysis of
existing images of the future to creating purpose-built images of the future for
exploratory, critical, or strategic purposes, then it may be useful to generate crazy
futures by design to mimic their emergence across societies and cultures.
Why are crazy futures the most useful?
We all agree that your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough?
Niels Bohr
Consideration of the basic axioms of futures studies points directly to why crazy
futures are useful: we are embedded in – and are ourselves – complex systems flirting
daily with chaos. In describing the ‘edge of chaos’ (Langton, 1990), Chris Langton’s
egg diagram maps the transition boundaries between periodic, chaotic, and complex
states. This diagram categorizes four types of systems. There are fixed systems,
existing in a state of maximum thermodynamic equilibrium, meaning maximum
entropy (or death). There are periodic systems, which are ordered but not adaptive.
There are chaotic systems, characterized by sensitive dependence on initial
conditions, and non-linear determinism. Finally, there are complex systems that are
self-organizing, self-directing, self-repairing, and adaptive.
The self-directing and adaptive characteristics of complex systems result in
evolutionary change over time, producing in turn novel emergent properties. They
generate surprises. If sentient, they undoubtedly surprise themselves. Emergent
properties are ‘out of the ordinary’, if by ordinary we mean the previous patterns of
ordered system behaviour. So any complex adaptive system (and all human systems –
whether single individuals or collections as organizations, or communities, or nation-
states – are complex adaptive/evolving systems) will at one point or another generate
‘crazy states’.
It becomes even more likely that these systems will exhibit ‘crazy’, that is, ‘out of the
ordinary’ behaviour if they are stressed by larger energy or information flows. One
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response to stress in a complex system is a transition into chaotic behaviour. This
phase change also creates the potential for novel and unusual behaviour outside the
ordinary.
Cynefin Framework, David J. Snowden, Cognitive Edge
Langton’s diagram summarizes system characteristics as observed externalities. In
contrast, Snowden’s Cynefin Framework offers the internal view, as the observing
consciousness attempts to make sense of dynamic systems and events in transition.
Cynefin … contrasts how things are, with how we know them, with how we perceive
them” (Snowden, 2013). Cynefin organizes both the systems, and the knowledge
about those systems, in order to suggest ‘best fit’ paths for actors navigating the
dynamics of those systems and events. One of the best fit paths suggests a deliberate
brief dip into chaos precisely to generate radical innovation, or potential ‘crazy
futures.’
So in the end, a focus on ‘crazy futures’ may be the most adaptive strategy we can
encourage people to adopt, and a focus on ‘plausibility’ the most maladaptive. Is your
future crazy enough to help you, your organization, your community evolve? Better
that we rehearse the full range of surprises that may await us across our futures, than
be ill-prepared and unable to adapt. Emergence and evolution are preferable to
equilibrium.
How can we best communicate craziness?
I want to believe.
Fox Mulder’s wall poster, ‘The X-Files
So how are we to communicate compelling craziness? In 1970 Mori identified ‘the
uncanny valley’ in observing how people responded to humanoid robots (Mori, 1970).
Digital animators have also noticed a similar response to animated human characters.
The uncanny valley hypothesis suggests that when human ‘replicas’ – either robotic
or animated– look and act almost, but not perfectly, human, people response with
revulsion. Granted, James Cameron seems to have overcome the effect in generating
the Navi characters over the motion capture performance of his actors.
The relevance to useful crazy futures is that something similar exists in conveying
radically transgressive, transformative images of possible futures: up until a point,
increasing craziness increases how exciting, provocative, and challenging they are.
Beyond that point, increasing craziness pushes the futures into the uncanny valley of
the unthinkable, on the other side of which is the transgression of perfect conceptual
chaos. Whatever their degree of craziness, useful futures are compelling – people
respond to them, adopt them, and use them to inform action.
How do we decrease the uncanny valley of the unthinkable? How do we avoid
Cassandra syndrome? The endeavour of deploying crazy futures asks us to balance on
a knife edge of usability: too normal, and no mind-shift results; too crazy, and brain-
freeze occurs. Likewise, futures too divorced from our own experience may feel very
crazy, but not be very compelling; too near to our own experience, and the futures
will be too subjective to be useful – compelling, but insufficiently out of the ordinary.
A possible antidote can be found in audience participation. Cutting edge methods in
scenario building include projects like Jane McGonigal’s SuperStruct, and Evoke, and
the growing body of work using the Institute for the Future’s ‘Foresight Engine’.
These projects all rely on massively crowd-sourced, participatory futures formation
via on-line game environments. They evolve from each individual’s own
participation, which is very compelling – but they evolve. The futures generated are
emergent properties of the participants’ interactions with each other, and the useful
strangeness arises from those interactions. In The Art of Immersion, Frank Rose offers
a range of case studies underlining how powerfully engaging the unfinished story can
be (Rose, 2012). This is the Web 2.0 corollary of McLuhan’s ‘media hot and cool’:
the most compelling media are the ‘cool’ media, conveying ideas in low definition
and inviting us to participate in completing the details. So whatever crazy futures we
imagine, we should imagine them with holes, with interstitial spaces that invite other
people to adapt them and adopt them: a crazy future must be compelling to be useful.
Coda
Alice laughed. ‘There's no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can't believe impossible things.’
‘I dare say you haven't had much practice,’ said the queen. ‘When I was your age, I
always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six
impossible things before breakfast.’
Lewis Carroll / Charles Dodgson, Alice in Wonderland
In order to thrive in whatever futures we pass through, it helps to rehearse what our
values, assumptions, decisions and actions - our very sense of self - might be in those
futures. Authentic rehearsal inevitably requires that at some level we choose to
believe not only what is plausible, and not just what is probable or possible, but that
we stretch our values, assumptions, and sense of self to believe and rehearse for the
impossible as well.
So call me crazy.
You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.
Jimi Hendrix
Note
This article is an update of an essay originally written for the Mutual Learning
Workshop on Crazy Futures, 27 June – 1 July 2011. This activity of The Bucharest
Dialogues was sponsored by UEFISCSU, the Romanian Executive Agency for Higher
Education and Research Funding, and their support is gratefully acknowledged.
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(2006) 17-27
... A ideia é oriunda do artigo de Wendy L. Schultz (2015), titulado Crazy Futures: ...
... Para Schultz, é preciso ter em mente que há múltiplas alternativas para o futuro e que as pessoas engajam no que acreditam, nesse sentido, aumentar a loucura pode aumentar o engajamento, provocar e desafiar os participantes. (SCHULTZ, 2015). Trata-se de uma discussão que desperta para as possibilidades e relevância dos futuros para além da segurança comumente utilizada de ancorar os sentidos que o futuro pode oferecer. ...
Thesis
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This thesis aims to tension the view of mitigating uncertainties present in the methods of building scenarios in design. The objective is to propose an imaginative- speculative narrative method of scenario construction as part of a procedural action in design that instigates the designer to explore and experience other readings of the world through fictional narratives, in particular, guided by the Science Fiction genre. The relevance of this approach lies in the search for methodological innovation, in which the process is not motivated by possible worlds or by speculations that are anchored to the need to make plausible visions of the future of materialization. Thinking about the near future at the literary threshold makes it an artifice to explore the paths that are built in the course of the experience by the narrative, whose consequences are opportunities to obtain other readings of the world. The research method is marked by two movements, the first, theoretical, aims to learn from the literature review and build a first theoretical framework that guides, but does not imprison, the paths of this thesis. And, a second, concomitant to the first, guided by action research, whose exploratory and qualitative nature of the research is approached as a cyclical process of learning and evolution towards the design method. Action research cycles follow three procedures: a reflection moment on the previous cycle and planning for practical action; an action moment in the workshop for the construction of narratives, which includes designers and non-designers; and a last one of feedback destined to the final questions about the perceptions of the subjects. The second procedure of each cycle, the workshop, is handled by protocol analysis. At the end of the research, it is discovered that narrating in fictional worlds is not an experience so easily obtained. The designers needed help to detach themselves from the linear and rational anchoring that permeates the scenario construction process. As a result, in addition to the proposition of the method that emphasizes in its moments the metaphor of the traveler who builds paths as he walks, tools such as speculative charts were also created that help designers allow themselves to imagine and speculate with Science Fiction. Fictionalizing generated an interpretive process between worlds and allowed re(thinking) the designers' previous experiences through symbolic language.
... However, Schultz (2015), who contests the value of 'plausibility' as an assessment criterion, traces the term's use to futures practice. As Schultz notes, the notion of plausibility limits the range of scenarios to "the subjective capability and state of knowledge of the viewer" (Schultz, 2015); it becomes a criterion that is bounded by the cultural constraints of the organisation or sector, and restricts the ability of participants to challenge their own world views. ...
... However, Schultz (2015), who contests the value of 'plausibility' as an assessment criterion, traces the term's use to futures practice. As Schultz notes, the notion of plausibility limits the range of scenarios to "the subjective capability and state of knowledge of the viewer" (Schultz, 2015); it becomes a criterion that is bounded by the cultural constraints of the organisation or sector, and restricts the ability of participants to challenge their own world views. ...
Article
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Scenario planning helps in contemplating how the future may develop and can be especially important when needing to make sense of uncertainty – something now pertinent to the transport sector. Accordingly, scenario planning is moving from the periphery of strategic transport planning towards becoming a more normalised and integral contribution. By examining rather than ignoring a range of uncertainties about the future, scenarios can be developed that enable an exploration of different futures, in turn improving transport planning. Scenarios can be narrative based, represented quantitatively, or combine ‘storytelling and number crunching’. Both the process of creating them and of representing the scenarios, deepen an appreciation of uncertainty about the future. In turn this allows planners and policymakers to better understand potential outcomes and challenges and determine how to address these. Scenarios can also be used to identify and assess candidate measures for influencing the transport system, testing these against a range of uncertain future conditions. This helps to identify measures that together can help form a strategy that is more robust. Drawing upon the combined experience of its authors, this paper provides insights into the development of scenarios and their use to improve decision making in transport planning. It offers advice on how to help ensure the scenario development process is credible, how to produce a coherent set of scenarios and how to ensure they are used to engage key stakeholders and to enable policymakers to confidently develop their strategic thinking and plans.
... They hold weaker causal relationships and credulity, allowing for greater exploration of variables and relationships. Schultz (2015) refers to these as crazy futures, and even goes so far as to consider these the most useful in the SP process. This can be beneficial when practitioners would like to avoid the "unconscious neglect of unlikely or undesirable possibilities" (Ducot and Lubben, 1980, p. 52). ...
... This is because plausibility relies primarily on the subjective capabilities and knowledge of the practitioners, and is often conflated with highly probable trends (Ramirez and Selin, 2014). Therefore it is important to cast a wide net with plausibility and consider both 'normal' and crazy (Schultz, 2015), trend and peripheral (Ducot and Lubben, 1980), as possessing the potential for plausibility. Internal consistency is related to coherence, and is defined by Kosow and Gaßner (2008, p. 39) as, "paths to the futures and images within a scenario must be consistent with one another, i.e. their aspects may not be mutually contradictory or even go so far as to exclude each other for reasons of logic and plausibility." ...
Article
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Scenario planning, as a recognised organisational intervention, has steadily grown in popularity since the mid-20th century. To date, there are arguably as many methods and techniques as there are practitioners, with applications across nearly all sectors of public and private industry. Many feel that scenario planning is forever consigned to the realm of chaos, incapable of being clearly defined. We disagree and see the field as a collective of experiences and knowledge that play upon a theme, where emerging realities slowly reveal a structure to the system. In response, we propose a comprehensive typology for scenario planning interventions – the Comprehensive Scenario Intervention typology – which incorporates all dimensions of existing typologies along with additional dimensions and functions that reflect previously unrecognized and emergent topics relevant to understanding the critical realities of an intervention. The Comprehensive Scenario Intervention typology expands the scope of scenario planning interventions and adds to the theoretical foundation of the field.
... Hamann et al. 2012). In the eld of futures studies, concepts such as 'crazy futures' (Schultz 2015a), 'preposterous futures' (Voros 2017) and 'post-normal times' (Sardar and Sweeney 2016) are expected to in uence existing methods and inspire new ones. Innovative and creative practices around combining di erent scenario methods and/or the mashing up of scenarios and foresight methods are also expected to grow. ...
Chapter
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Key methods discussed in this chapter Double uncertainty matrix, Mānoa, scenario archetypes, La Prospective, causal layered analysis
... Hamann et al. 2012). In the eld of futures studies, concepts such as 'crazy futures' (Schultz 2015a), 'preposterous futures' (Voros 2017) and 'post-normal times' (Sardar and Sweeney 2016) are expected to in uence existing methods and inspire new ones. Innovative and creative practices around combining di erent scenario methods and/or the mashing up of scenarios and foresight methods are also expected to grow. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Scenarios and participatory scenario planning, futures wheels, three horizons framework, design/experiential futures, horizon scanning, Delphi, trend impact analysis, emerging issues analysis, causal layered analysis, appreciative inquiry, gaming (also known as ‘gamification’ or serious gaming), future workshops, visioning, back-casting, road-mapping
Chapter
Scenario planning developed as a practice and a process almost twenty years after the first modern futures practice, yet it has become a dominant discourse within the futures literature. Within this discourse, the “intuitive logics” school—closely associated with the Global Business Network [GBN] and SRI, and also if less so with Royal Dutch Shell—has become influential. Literature reviews of scenario methods can even overlook other scenarios processes. In doing this, it has pushed to the background other futures methods that were rooted in philosophical approaches, were oriented towards visioning and agency, and adopted more critical epistemologies. This chapter traces the emergence of scenario planning in the late 1960s and the 1970s, from its roots in more quantitative approaches to futures originally developed for the US Department of Defense. It was adopted at that time because of the crisis of planning then being experienced by large corporations because of the end of the long post-war economic boom. A second wave of corporate scenario planning followed in the 1990s after GBN published a simplified process for developing scenarios using the double uncertainty (2x2) matrix. Several characteristics of corporate scenario planning follow from this history, including the “decision focus” referenced in the literature and assumptions about the relationship between the business and its broader environment. There is also a correspondence between types of methods (for example, deductive or inductive) and the epistemological base of scenarios practice. Finally, the chapter draws on Tibbs’ (1999) model of the psychological basis of futures work to locate mainstream scenario planning work in the body of business strategy, and to understand the business question that scenario planning emerged to address.
Article
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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore extant distinctions between plausibility and probability in scenario planning and re-frame the either/or stance in the literature within a broader set of methodological choice possibilities. Design/methodology/approach – The paper surveys the history of both terms in both the English language and more narrowly within scenario planning, critically assessing the confusions that have arisen. The paper questions the distinctions that have been made and offers a richer set of combinations to open up the methodological space available. Findings – The paper suggests that the either/or stances that have been dominant in the literature – and even shaped distinctions between different schools of scenario planning – must be surpassed by a richer set of combinations that open up new methodological approaches and possibilities. Research limitations/implications – This is a conceptual and exploratory paper. Therefore the findings are propositions and tentative. Practical implications – The paper opens up new ways of producing scenarios and may dissolve some of the infertile distinctions that have plagued the field to now. Originality/value – The paper dilutes distinctions that have been accepted for decades and opens up new possibilities in the scenarios field, which is growing and is now producing some 2,200 peer-reviewed articles/year in English alone as per the EBSCO database.
Book
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After centuries of linear storytelling and many decades of mass media, we are witnessing the emergence of a new form of narrative—one that is native to the Internet in the same way the novel is native to print. Told through many media at once, often in a nonlinear fashion, narratives like "Lost" and "Avatar" and "The Office" encourage us not merely to watch but to participate. They are not just entertaining but immersive, taking us deeper than an hour-long TV drama or a two-hour movie or a 30-second spot will permit. Frequently they engage us in the same way games do. As stories break the limits imposed by print and film and video, boundaries that once seemed clear—between author and audience, content and marketing, illusion and reality—are starting to blur. The results are at once surprising and inevitable.
Article
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Purpose The purpose of this article is to identify points of conceptual conflict between evidence‐based policy research and horizon (environmental) scanning. Design/methodology/approach The paper begins with a brief history of foresight in UK government, then describes the current government context for horizon scanning. Next, it defines horizon scanning as a method; highlights the contradictions between horizon scanning and more traditional empirical research; and offers suggestions to improve the rigor of horizon scanning. Findings Increased focus on defining the rules for source identification and scan data validation can enhance credibility. Research limitations/implications Current horizon scanning work in the UK government suggests these methodological improvements, but proof will wait upon completion and deployment of several ongoing horizon scans. Practical implications Provides improved acceptability and dissemination of horizon scanning as a tool, as well as heightened engagement of policy‐makers, planners, and leaders with horizon scanning output. Originality/value There has been little previous work exploring the cultural constraints on adoption of horizon scanning within the evidence‐based polity context.
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the clarification of three qualifiers “probable”, “possible” and “plausible”, which are often used interchangeably in foresight and futures studies practice, but which could obtain added value through a careful distinction. In general, it shows the importance of language as the main tool for futures practitioners. Design/methodology/approach Employs semantic and conceptual research. Findings Distinction of the three qualifiers has not only semantic importance; it also leads to a better conception of what futures practice could work towards. Practical implications Futures practitioners should more carefully apply their vocabulary, since it is their main tool. By carefully distinguishing probability, possibility and plausibility, a better focus on the purpose of futures practice becomes attainable. Originality/value Very little effort is spent on the working of language in futures studies. Besides glossaries, there is very little work done in sharpening this major tool. The semantic confusion that reigns within the foresight/futures studies community is mainly due to a lack of involvement in this clarification process. Applied semantics is often considered as burdensome, whereas it should be at the core of how the future is being conceptualized.