Public Policy/LegislativeImpact

Scenario Building

Scenario building is a structured way of thinking about and exploring the future.

It highlights the large scale forces that push the future in different directions and

produces stories about how those forces might play out.

What Is Scenario Building?

Why Scenario Building?

• A tool that helps shape thinking about the future

• Engages whole systems thinking about what is important to us and the institutions we work for

• Creates options for the future; short, medium and long-term

• Helps identify strategies to harness and implement those options

So, are you up to exploring?

Approaching the Task

Check mental models, assumptions, and agendas Each of us often sees an issue through a narrow perspective; our experience, education, philosophical and emotional view of the world. This view is important but should not be set in stone.

Believe that the wisdom related to the topic is within the group Within given constraints, the best group has been assembled for the task.

Honor each other’s ideas Listen, reflect, ask questions for clarification and understanding.

Assume that what is known for certain. . . is false

Combine rigor with creativity Allow ideas you don’t understand to surface and see the light of day.

Essential Question

University of Michigan; Vision 2010 “How will digital technology impact higher education?”

Schoolcraft College: SimTech Center “How will simulation technology impact teaching and learning at Schoolcraft College?”

MACRAO Session: Public Policy/Legislation “How will government legislation impact higher education enterprises?”

Identifying Key FactorsFactors = the drivers of change; trends and other conditionsthat shape the future

Factors can be visible, hidden, disruptive

Highest layers of factors often correspond tosuperficial and fast-changing trends

Deepest layers involve values, world views and belief systems

Identifying Key Factors

Micro-factors = those that directly relate to the world we are now occupying (your institution, other MI community colleges,other higher ed. institutions, etc.)

Macro-factors = those that come from the larger environment(may drive micro-factors)

STEEP = frame for identifying key factors

SocialTechnologicalEconomicEnvironmentalPolitical

Identifying Key Factors

Bundling Factors

Rank factors for certainty and uncertainty

1. Which factors will be most significant in determining the answer to our essential question?

2. Which factors, amongst the most significant, are most certain; are predetermined? Which are uncertain?

Bundling FactorsWhich factors are most significant?Which factors are most uncertain most uncertain?

Co

mp

etit

ion

Digital Literacy

Fragmentation

Coherence

Ind

ivid

ua

l

Co

mm

un

ity

Identifying Axis Factors

Sim

ula

tio

n T

ech

no

log

y C

apac

ity

Political/Economichigh impact

Political/Economiclow impact

Low

end

High

end

Quadrant 1 Quadrant 2

Quadrant 3Quadrant 4

Building the Stories

1. Each quadrant on the axis represents a different future

2. Return to the list of key factors

3. How will these factors play out in each quadrant?

4. Play with placing the factors in your quadrant?

5. What are the implications? What is the emerging plot?

6. Begin to capture this as a story

Building Strategies

1. Determine who will author each of the four scenarios

2. Determine who will identify strategies based on each scenario

3. Develop four possible strategies to answer the essential question?

4. Develop the plan

5. Look for indicators that demonstrate the future is heading

in the direction of one or more scenarios

6. Make adjustments in the plan as needed