2. Scenarios are a self-consistent set of stories about
plausible futures - they highlight future uncertainty
Scenarios are not
Scenarios are not
strategy
predictions
They create
Do not expect
context for
that any single
strategy
scenario will be
“correct” or Metaphor: flying
“the” future aircraft designs
through various
Can’t assign
wind tunnel
probabilities
configurations
40+ years of Scenario Planning best practices
3. Core Team Forward Thinkers
Create planning question Brainstorming #1 “Beliefs”
(scope) and prompts for… “I believe…”
Diverge
Topical investigations and Brainstorming #2 “Assertions”
create prompts for… “We believe…”
Converge
Scenario structure and Brainstorming #3 “Dynamics”
high-level dynamics Review/critique structure and
brainstorm scenario dynamics
Draft scenarios Consistency and completeness
checking
Strategic planning simulations, publication, etc.
4. What is it we want to
know about our future?
Bound our scope and
market windows
Do the homework
Look for uncertainty
5. What is uncertain about our future?
Structuring future scenarios and
acknowledging risk
Pick pairs of uncertainties
Play with them
Settle on uncertainties that best
illustrate potential risk and potential
reward
Write a set of scenarios that talk to
how the uncertainties might resolve
themselves
6. Differentiating structure based on
Structure critical uncertainties and events
Scenario A description of our market or industry
Descriptions in each alternate future
Platform Describe “dominant design” features
Descriptions in each future
Events that determine which scenario
Guideposts features are evolving
7. Scenarios are a consistent
framework to encourage
constructive dialog
How will we differentiate
ourselves in each scenario?
8. Locality
Local Hosted
End-to-End Apps Thundercloud
User Experience
Non-Windows (New Apps) (New Apps)
Today Hosted Client
Windows and (New Apps) (Good Enough)
Mac
9. Scalability
Specific Applications General Purpose
Hosted Cloud Experience
Application Focus
Client
Experience
Hardware+ Hyper-Scale
(Today)
Business
10. How are we different now?
How will we maintain our differentiation over time?
Alternate title: Used to have customer-neutral opinions about the future of our industryIt’s a great way to show customers what we believe is possible and why without judging their particular set of beliefs and strategiesIt’s also a great way to incorporate their beliefs into our future planning without retaining ties to specific customers and products – simple course corrections can covey new future directions without calling out specificsThe results of scenario planning are also very publishable – it’s great collateral at conferences, for instance, to set common AMD future context for everything from engineering presentations to market initiatives
Rank your uncertainties on two scales – what’s important to you and what’s important to your marketFocus on the uncertainties that rank high on both.This is differentiating insight into your market.Simply having a good handle on what’s both really uncertain and really important puts you ahead of the game.
DescriptionsWho acted in what fashion to produce each scenarioMajor similarities and differences between scenarios
<read slide>Remember, everyone is wrong about the future. Our goal is to manage our risks better than our competitors.Scenarios provide a context to strategy that lets people focus on what to do about many possible futures, instead of what can go wrong with the one future each person has in their headYou can apply this process to many kinds of projects and enterprise; I’ve even helped a church go through this process to understand the impact of their changing demographics
More work needed to fully explore the scenario space
