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The Future Workshop: Democratic problem solving

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René Victor Valqui Vidal at Technical University of Denmark
René Victor Valqui Vidal
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Abstract

The origins, principles and practice of a very popular method known as The Future Workshop are presented. The fundamental theory and principles of this method are presented in an introductory way. In addition, practical guidelines to carry out such a workshop are outlined and several types of applications are shortly described. The crucial importance of both the facilitation process and the use of creative tools in team work are enhanced.
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... To identify these drivers and implications, this workshop proposal introduces an approach based on futures clinique methodology [17], a version of futures workshop [37]. Through collaborative activities and discussions, it aims to envision different narrative future scenarios to inform various stakeholders how these technologies should be adopted into society in order to mitigate risks and promote benefits. ...
... The proposed workshop uses futures clinique as a method, which is an elaborated and structured form of the classical futures workshop (FW) created by Jungk in the 80s [17]. The classical FW comprises the following phases: preparation, critique, fantasy, implementation, and follow-up [37], and while this structure is present in different versions of FW, the method has many alternative activities based on the aim, preferable outputs, and time resources [28]. During the preparation phase, the facilitator should clarify the purposes of the workshop, who the participants are and why, and the duration of the workshop. ...
... This phase also includes activities during the workshop, such as familiarising participants with the topic and the activities of the FW. It is also advised to have a small warm-up exercise before the other phases of FW [37]. While Vidal describes the critique, fantasy, and implementation phases, they do not provide structured activities to facilitate these phases. ...
Digital Technologies and Human Consciousness: A Futures Workshop for Exploring Potential Implications
Conference Paper
Full-text available
  • Oct 2024
Over the past decades, digital technologies have permeated many everyday tasks and practices, reshaping human behaviour and causingun intended consequences. The emergence of artificial intelligence, extended reality, brain-computer interfaces, and nanotechnology have increased the likelihood of a future in which the impact of digital technologies reaches an unprecedented degree by expanding human consciousness. As such, the societal implications of such developments require an urgent evaluation. In this workshop proposal, we suggest an approach based on the futures clinique method to identify drivers and obstacles of change and potential societal implications through different future scenarios of digitally-induced altered states of consciousness (DIAL). The workshop’scontributions comprise novel future scenarios that will aid in identifying potential benefits of DIAL and strategies for mitigating risks. It will provide a platform for exploring the implications of these emerging technologies through a novel perspective (DIAL) that is not currently prominent in the discourse but must be considered to mitigate unintended consequences.
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... Futures workshop methods incorporate this exploratory aspect, but enable a more flexible approach to exploring possible futures in a workshop format, allowing creative and novel ideas to emerge (see e.g. Lauttamäki, 2014;2016;Vidal, 2006;Foran et al., 2016). The futures workshop approach has three main components: describing and critiquing the current situation; imagining/ visualising a preferable future situation; and exploring ways of moving from the actual situation to the preferred one (see Vidal, 2006). ...
... Lauttamäki, 2014;2016;Vidal, 2006;Foran et al., 2016). The futures workshop approach has three main components: describing and critiquing the current situation; imagining/ visualising a preferable future situation; and exploring ways of moving from the actual situation to the preferred one (see Vidal, 2006). ...
... Use of futures workshop methods also enabled a more flexible approach, allowing creative/innovative ideas to emerge (see e.g. Lauttamäki, 2016;2014;Vidal, 2006;Foran et al., 2016). We incorporated the three main components of futures workshops into the WFMPWs as detailed below (describing and critiquing the current situation; imagining/visualising a preferable future situation; and exploring ways of moving from the actual situation to the preferred one (Vidal, 2006)). ...
Walkable Maps and Policy Innovation for Nature: A Novel Methodology for Understanding Policy Learning
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2024
Methodological innovation is needed that actively engages a range of policy makers in policy learning to address the climate and biodiversity crises. We developed Walkable Floor Map Policy Workshops (WFMPWs) as a way of engaging policy makers in policy learning towards NBS innovation in their local context. This paper examines WFMPW methodology for NBS through an analysis of three WFMPWs in three European urban case study sites. We find that implementation of WFMPWs facilitated policy learning through group discussion and experience sharing amongst participating policy makers. The WFMPWs added greater spatial contextualisation and the futures workshop elements facilitated discussions of future opportunities and barriers, leading to questioning of common approaches and assumptions and ‘thinking outside of the box’. The data provided in-depth, comparative, nuanced, and locally contextualised qualitative insights of interest across multiple disciplines. The findings provide a different way of understanding political and decision-making processes around NBS, including problem framing and shifting policy debates. The WFMPW approach enabled participating policy makers to describe and critique the current situation; imagine/visualise a preferable future situation; and explore ways of moving from the actual situation to the preferred one.
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... We used the future workshop approach as described by Apel [21] and Vidal [25] to design our data collection component. Future workshops use a three-step design, which focuses on critique, social fantasy, and implementation to support dialogue and co-construction of knowledge during workshop interventions ( Figure 1). ...
... This was done to stimulate "out-of-box thinking" and enhance the possibility of finding unconventional solutions. Finally, the implementation phase adopted a more realistic view of the proposed solutions from the fantasy phase, as participants' suggestions were evaluated, discussed, and modified into solutions that were novel, valuable, and implementable [25]. ...
... Overview of the phases, including the future workshop methodology (adapted from Vidal[25]). ...
Improving general practice management of patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain: Interdisciplinarity, coherence, and concerns
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2024
Objectives Management of patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) remains a challenge in general practice. The general practitioner (GP) often experiences diagnostic uncertainty despite frequently referring patients with CMP to specialized departments. Therefore, it remains imperative to gain insights on how to optimize and reframe the current setup for the management of patients with CMP. The objective was to explore GP's perspectives on the challenges, needs, and visions for improving the management of patients with CMP. Methods A qualitative study with co-design using the future workshop approach. Eight GPs participated in the future workshop (five females). Insights and visions emerged from the GP's discussions and sharing of their experiences in managing patients with CMP. The audio-recorded data were subjected to thematic text analysis. Results The thematic analysis revealed four main themes, including (1) challenges with current pain management, (2) barriers to pain management, (3) the need for a biopsychosocial perspective, and (4) solutions and visions. All challenges are related to the complexity and diagnostic uncertainty for this patient population. GPs experienced that the patients' biomedical understanding of their pain was a barrier for management and underlined the need for a biopsychosocial approach when managing the patients. The GPs described taking on the role of coordinators for their patients with CMP but could feel ill-equipped to handle diagnostic uncertainty. An interdisciplinary unit was recommended as a possible solution to introduce a biopsychosocial approach for the examination, diagnosis, and management of the patient's CMP. Conclusions The complexity and diagnostic uncertainty of patients with CMP warrants a revision of the current setup. Establishing an interdisciplinary unit using a biopsychosocial approach was recommended as an option to improve the current management for patients with CMP.
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... The implementation of design thinking is related to organizational construction, such as organizational culture, and the characteristics of design thinking tools and cultural experiences enable people to actively participate in socia practices and support one another [19]. Design thinking also involves how community residents, community management personnel, and designers explore the future through focus interviews and workshops on the future [20]. A basic task of future research is to identify and study future scenarios by analyzing a range of information, thereby assisting individuals and groups in imagining, developing, organizing, and constructing future landscapes [21]. ...
... The implementation of design thinking is related to organizational construction, such as organizational culture, and the characteristics of design thinking tools and cultural experiences enable people to actively participate in social practices and support one another [19]. Design thinking also involves how community residents, community management personnel, and designers explore the future through focus interviews and workshops on the future [20]. A basic task of future research is to identify and study future scenarios by analyzing a range of information, thereby assisting individuals and groups in imagining, developing, organizing, and constructing future landscapes [21]. ...
... By conducting interviews, designers and community management personnel envisioned future solutions to current problems and explored the future landscape by combining practical and reflective design activities. We divided this process into three stages: critique (identifying current problems), construction (creating a future picture), and implementation (solving future problems) [20,48]. Future researchers of community sustainable development should identify, study, and explore the future landscape of communities in order to assist residents, management personnel, and designers in jointly constructing a preferred future community that is sustainable. ...
Sustainable Development in Old Communities in China—Using Redesigned Nucleic Acid Testing Booths for Community-Specific Needs
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2024
The sustainable development of urban communities has attracted widespread attention from all sectors. So, the question regarding how to promote sustainable development in communities has become an important issue that warrants consideration and research. Sustainable development thinking can help create more effective strategies, enhance the ability to organize information, and build a preferred future. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the nucleic acid testing booths in China played an important role in providing fast screening to determine community outbreaks and effectively prevent the spread of the virus. However, with the overall relaxation of the zero COVID-19 policy, many nucleic acid testing booths are currently largely idle. The question regarding how to leverage these testing booths scientifically and reasonably by redesigning them for local conditions is a ready-to-research topic. Based on theories such as future design and sustainable development construction of future urban communities, we focused on old urban communities in China and explored how to use idle testing booths by conducting field research and resident interviews. We thus aimed to explore how to redesign idle nucleic acid testing booths and transform them into products or smart mobile convenience service stations by applying the study’s qualitative results. Through a case analysis, we constructed design models for intelligent mobile convenience service stations in old communities that met the needs of the future urban community residents and promoted the sustainable development of the community. We hope that our results will be further verified via the design of intelligent convenience service stations in other cities.
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... The tree will be the starting point for the future workshop. The second step (future workshop) is a three-hour workshop, based on Robert Jungk's methodology (Vidal 2006). Future workshops are organized in a chronological way featuring a row of phases (preparation, critique, fantasy, implementation, follow up) where participants define problems, find solutions and ultimately create action plans (Vidal 2006;Troxler & Kuhnt 2007;Kensing & Madsen 2020;Alminde & Warming 2020). ...
... The second step (future workshop) is a three-hour workshop, based on Robert Jungk's methodology (Vidal 2006). Future workshops are organized in a chronological way featuring a row of phases (preparation, critique, fantasy, implementation, follow up) where participants define problems, find solutions and ultimately create action plans (Vidal 2006;Troxler & Kuhnt 2007;Kensing & Madsen 2020;Alminde & Warming 2020). In our case, the workshop links to the problems identified in the first step (problem tree analysis) leaving out the preparation and critique phases. ...
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... Jungk and Müllert (1987) proposed the future workshop to support ordinary people facing a common challenge to explore desirable futures and solve small and large-scale social problems (Suoranta and Teräs, 2023). Future workshops involve a preparatory phase (e.g., practical arrangements and deciding on topics) and three workshop phases: critique (of chosen topics), fantasy (coming up with desires and alternative futures) and implementation (identifying challenges to achieve the best selected scenario and drafting a plan for action) (Jungk and Müllert, 1987;Vidal et al., 2006). The future workshop has been adapted and used widely in different contexts such as healthcare (Clemensen et al., 2007) or to engage with children and young people in vulnerable situations (Alminde and Warming, 2020), switching from "what is to what is not yet, but what could be" (Suoranta and Teräs, 2023). ...
Barriers and Facilitators to Participation when Involving Caregivers and Healthcare Workers in Co-design Workshops in Peruvian Low-resource Settings
Conference Paper
Full-text available
  • Jul 2024
Participatory Design (PD) approaches aim to engage various stakeholders to democratise the design process and influence the development of technologies. However, the use of PD approaches is challenging in low-resource settings. This paper presents the lessons learned from conducting future workshops with caregivers and healthcare workers as part of a project aiming to co-design health interventions to promote healthy nutrition in low-resource settings in Peru. Reflecting on these workshops, we present a number of barriers and facilitators highlighting the physical, social and temporal factors that affect participation in low-resource settings. Tailoring and adapting design methods do help reducing the level of complexity and fostering engagement and participation in PD activities in low-resource settings.
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Experiences of Extensive User Involvement through Vision Seminars in a Large IT Project
Article
  • Sep 2023
As the complexity of IT systems increases, the demand for methods taking the whole work situation into account grows. The Vision Seminar (VS) process addresses the future usage of technologies in complex digital work environments. This paper describes the experiences of conducting the VS process in the context of a large IT project to improve study-administrative work. The participants and stakeholders' experiences of participating in VS workshops were studied as the effect the participants and stakeholders believed the vision might have. Data were gathered through interviews and a survey. The participants were confident that the time spent on workshops was worthwhile and that achieving the future described in the resulting vision was feasible. The stakeholders perceived the VS process as rigorous. They were happily surprised by the positive spirit and engagement displayed by the participants. The utility of the resulting vision not being obvious was the most notable weakness mentioned.
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