Creating Futures with Scenario Building and John Boyd’s OODA “Loop”

On June 3, 1965, NASA astronaut Ed White stepped out of his Gemini capsule and into space for the first American spacewalk.

Change is happening so fast, it can often feel like change is happening to us rather than something we participate in.

Uncertain times can cause a shift into survival mode or short-term thinking. The instinct isn’t to take the long-view. We re-focus on what is in our control; one day at a time, one task at a time. Manageable bites. But how else can we lead ourselves through uncertainty if not with a concept or a vision of where we want to go?

Whether we plan it or not, we don’t progress passively into the future. We architect it through each day and task. What if all that energy, spent day after day, were towards something we believe could be better than today. What if those actions, day after day, had adverse impacts we were unaware of? Scenario building gives us a chance to choose awareness and an opportunity to intervene.

As a strategic designer, continuous learning about how to imagine and create preferred futures has been a way to navigate these uncertain times. To this end, I recently completed the Scenario Building course from Institute for the Future.

In strategic design, creating newness and imagining future states is part of the discipline. However, articulating those creations and futures can be challenging. So is turning them into useful…