How to Future

How to Future Plot Summary

Introduction

The future has never felt more uncertain. We live in an era of rapid technological advancement, social transformation, and environmental challenges that have fundamentally altered how we perceive tomorrow. This uncertainty creates anxiety for many of us—individuals, organizations, and societies alike. Yet what if uncertainty isn't something to fear but rather a landscape to navigate with skill and even excitement? The paradox of our time is that while we have more data and forecasting tools than ever before, the future seems increasingly unpredictable. This unpredictability isn't a sign of failure but rather an invitation to develop new capabilities. The pages ahead offer practical approaches for making sense of emerging signals, mapping possibilities, and taking strategic action in a world where certainty is rare but opportunity abounds. By embracing uncertainty rather than fighting against it, we can transform how we anticipate, prepare for, and ultimately shape the futures we desire.

Chapter 1: Scan the Horizon: Building Sensing Capabilities

Sensing the future begins long before formal analysis or strategic planning. It starts with developing an everyday awareness of signals of change that surround us. The authors describe this awareness as "active noticing"—a continuous, reflexive behavior of monitoring your environment and capturing inputs that might indicate important shifts. This isn't about predicting specific outcomes, but rather building sensitivity to patterns that may shape what's ahead. A powerful example comes from the authors' work with a global pharmaceutical company exploring the future of wellbeing. While most of their research covered expected territory around consumer health needs and product delivery, they also flagged an emerging trend that wasn't on the client's radar: the rise of marijuana legalization. Though just beginning to make its way through various state legislatures at the time, the trend signaled potential disruption to how consumers might seek wellbeing and what they would spend money on. By including this outlier signal, they helped expand the company's frame of reference beyond conventional market boundaries, preparing them for a shift that would later become significant in the consumer health market. This sensing capability can be formalized through horizon scanning—a structured process of looking across the landscape to detect weak signals and emerging trends. The authors describe how one media client established a dedicated scanning network that combined a core team who managed the process with contributors from across the organization who brought diverse perspectives. This hybrid approach allowed fresh inputs to flow into the system while maintaining coherent analysis. Effective scanning requires both breadth and focus. The authors recommend drawing from multiple sources—professional journals, news outlets, social media, blogs, expert interviews, and even direct observation. They advise creating categories to organize findings, such as the STEEP framework (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political) to ensure comprehensive coverage of different domains. Without this structure, organizations risk developing blind spots in their vision of the future. What makes horizon scanning truly valuable isn't the volume of information collected but the ability to recognize patterns within it. The authors suggest tracking signal characteristics like frequency (how often similar signals appear), strength (importance of the source), directionality (increasing or decreasing), maturity (how long you've been seeing similar signals), and spread (movement across domains). When multiple related signals emerge, they may indicate a trend worth deeper exploration. Building a sensing practice requires patience and persistence. The authors emphasize that while specialized tools can help, what matters most is developing the habit of looking beyond immediate concerns to notice the "thin wisps of tomorrow" that Fernand Braudel described. By cultivating this capacity, individuals and organizations can move from being constantly surprised by change to anticipating it with greater confidence and nuance.

Chapter 2: Map the Possibilities: Creating Scenarios

Mapping the future isn't about prediction but about understanding the landscape of possibility. The authors describe how transforming unstructured information into meaningful patterns requires frameworks that help us organize what we know and don't know. This process moves us from collecting signals to understanding their relationships and potential implications. Scott Smith shares a revealing story about working with a UK government client to explore the future of maritime economies. After gathering mountains of research and expert opinions, they faced the challenge of synthesizing this material into coherent scenarios. The team developed a timeline divided into three horizons—near-term (0-3 years), mid-term (3-7 years), and far-term (7-10 years)—and plotted trends across both time and certainty. This visualization revealed that while near-term trends were well-populated with high-certainty developments, the mid-term horizon contained critical uncertainties where the future could fork in multiple directions. These transition points became the foundation for developing divergent but plausible futures. The authors emphasize that good mapping is social rather than solitary. When working with Comcast's IP video engineering team to explore the next decade of internet-delivered video, they assembled a diverse group to identify trends spanning far beyond technology alone. The resulting map included signals related to interior design, climate change impacts on living environments, gambling, education, political stability, and energy storage. This breadth might seem excessive, but it revealed how seemingly unrelated developments could dramatically impact long-term engineering decisions. Creating useful maps requires acknowledging gaps in our understanding. The authors recommend asking: "If there are wide gaps in time or certainty, what additional trends might fill them?" They suggest using an impact wheel technique to explore implications—starting with a central trend and systematically working outward to identify first-, second-, and third-order effects. This helps populate the map with connecting threads that reveal how different futures might unfold. The mapping process ultimately creates a foundation for identifying narrative threads or themes. In their work with Comcast, the authors identified five distinct threads from a map of 35 trends and drivers. These themes weren't separate predictions but rather coherent storylines about how different aspects of the future might develop in parallel or in tension with each other. Through mapping, we transform individual signals into interconnected patterns that tell us something meaningful about possible futures. The authors remind us that this isn't an academic exercise but a practical tool for navigating uncertainty. By making the invisible visible, mapping enables more thoughtful consideration of what might lie ahead and how we might respond.

Chapter 3: Tell Better Stories: Bringing Futures to Life

Stories have the unique power to make abstract futures tangible and engaging. The authors trace this insight back to Herman Kahn, a pioneer of strategic planning at the RAND Corporation in the 1950s and 1960s. Frustrated by the inability of dry computational outputs to convey urgent implications about thermonuclear conflict, Kahn adopted the term "scenario" from Hollywood storytelling. This shift recognized that even the most rigorous analysis needs narrative structure to connect with human understanding and decision making. The authors describe working with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on "The Future is Now" project in 2017. They crafted a scenario depicting a world where climate-driven disruption had displaced millions: "Due to a steady increase in climate-driven disruption—intense storm seasons and flooding of densely populated coastal areas in Asia, drought-intensified conflict in the Mediterranean, Maghreb and southern Africa, and fires in South America—hundreds of thousands of people are left homeless and unable to remain in place. In 2026 alone, upwards of thirty-five million people were displaced, and needed assistance." The scenario continued by describing a new system called DyNaMo (Dynamic National Mobility) that allowed displaced people to gain temporary digital-legal citizenship in other countries. This narrative contained just enough detail to establish the problem, the solution, and the context, making abstract concepts like climate migration vivid and specific. Creating effective scenarios isn't about fantasy but about plausibility—what could reasonably happen based on trends already visible today. The authors stress that scenarios should only be as detailed as necessary; too little detail leaves audiences with hypotheticals lacking context, while excessive elaboration can undermine credibility. They recommend thinking of scenarios as "slices" of a future that help others understand key insights without overwhelming them with complexity. The process of developing scenarios often begins with identifying thematic threads from your mapping work. Using the example of alternative energy futures, the authors show how four distinct threads emerged: one about carbon-neutral home energy through regulatory incentives, another about homes detaching from the power grid through improved storage technology, a third describing hyperlocal algae-based fuel communities, and a fourth centered on microreactor technology. These threads could be explored as separate futures or as different aspects of a single future world. Scenarios gain power when they include specific details that ground abstract trends in relatable human contexts. Madeline Ashby shares how their work for Comcast resulted in scenarios designed around formats the team would recognize from daily life: a fan review of a show, a script from a new program, a news article on industry regulation, and minutes from a board meeting. By connecting unfamiliar futures to familiar formats, they created an accessible entry point for exploration. The authors emphasize that scenarios aren't meant to predict what will happen but to expand thinking about what could happen and what that might mean. Their value lies in creating a shared language for discussing uncertainty and examining the implications of different possibilities before they arrive. Through storytelling, we can create what scenario planners call the "scenaric stance"—the ability to hold multiple possible futures in mind simultaneously, improving our adaptability in a rapidly changing world.

Chapter 4: Prototype the Unknown: Test Future Concepts

Prototyping the future takes scenarios beyond written narratives into tangible experiences that engage people more deeply. The authors describe this as "materializing the possible"—creating physical or digital representations that help people connect with futures they cannot yet visit. These prototypes serve as "handles" on the future, allowing audiences to grasp not just objects or experiences themselves but the broader implications they represent. A compelling example comes from a project led by Near Future Laboratory exploring the impact of big data on culture. To reach non-specialist audiences in Manchester and Barcelona, the team created a fictional sports tabloid newspaper from four years in the future, complete with scores, previews, and advertisements that reflected how data might transform sports. This familiar format proved remarkably effective—city residents readily picked up the papers and engaged with stories about the future in a way they might not have in a formal seminar about data trends. The authors emphasize that prototyping doesn't require expensive production values. During their work with the Red Cross on future migration scenarios, they created simple but effective identity system artifacts including operator manuals, name tags, and logbooks that brought the hypothetical DyNaMo citizenship system to life. In other projects, they've used handmade coins, public service announcement posters, short podcasts, and mock-ups of energy measurement devices—all assembled quickly from readily available materials. Creating effective prototypes begins with identifying specific situations within your scenarios. These situations serve as entry points—moments where the broader narrative can be made concrete through a focused interaction or experience. For the migration scenario, the authors chose to prototype the table where an aid worker would meet with a displaced person seeking temporary citizenship, creating a 1:1 scale slice of this speculative world that audiences could visualize and emotionally connect with. The authors recommend adding personas to these situations—not detailed character profiles, but enough information about needs, wants, and tensions to make interactions feel authentic. They suggest developing both typical and atypical personas, noting that under-represented "other" personas often reveal the most interesting challenges to a future system. Importantly, personas shouldn't seamlessly fit the proposed future but rather test its boundaries and expose potential flaws. Designing prototypes that resonate requires understanding your audience's familiar reference points. The authors describe how they prepared for a project with Comcast by first talking with team members about their own media consumption habits, then designing scenario artifacts that would feel recognizable while subtly shifting focus toward new possibilities. This approach creates what the authors call "lossy futures"—experiences that intentionally leave gaps for the audience's imagination to fill, much as our brains complete partial sounds or images. When done thoughtfully, prototyping creates what Anab Jain calls "speculative evidence"—tangible manifestations of possible futures that people can see, touch, listen to, and interact with. By bringing scenarios off the page and into physical or digital form, prototypes invite deeper engagement with both opportunities and challenges, helping organizations move from abstract awareness to concrete preparation for what might come next.

Chapter 5: Take Strategic Action: From Foresight to Impact

Converting foresight into action requires bridging the gap between exploring possibilities and making concrete decisions. The authors provide a structured approach for assessing readiness across five organizational layers: People, Knowledge, Tools, Rules, and Networks. For each layer, they suggest asking targeted questions about what the organization currently has and what it would need to thrive in a particular scenario. A particularly illuminating example comes from their work with Singapore's Centre for Strategic Futures. Rather than producing traditional foresight reports that might gather dust on shelves, the Centre creates engaging trend card sets and even speculative props that help stakeholders think concretely about future impacts. These tangible tools prompt officials to consider what capabilities, information, technologies, regulations, and partnerships might be needed to address emerging challenges. By making abstract futures more concrete, they encourage practical planning rather than passive observation. The authors highlight a challenge many organizations face: how to measure progress toward distant futures using metrics designed for immediate results. They share the story of a student who proposed the concept of "return on vision" during a foresight course. Unlike conventional ROI focused on short-term gains, this approach recognizes that investments in future-readiness often yield benefits that are difficult to quantify in traditional terms. The authors cite the Apollo space program as an example—while its $152 billion (in today's dollars) cost might seem enormous, its long-term impacts included innovations ranging from water filtration to cloud computing technologies that transformed entire industries. Moving from exploration to action also requires developing appropriate language and communication strategies. The authors describe how organizations often lack vocabulary to discuss emerging issues, making it difficult to advertise for skills that don't yet have recognized descriptions or to engage partners about yet-to-emerge risks. They recommend creating mock press releases, internal announcements, or job postings as "prehearsals" that help teams become comfortable communicating about unexpected futures before they arrive. Strategic designer Dan Hill describes his work with government planners as "moving the Overton window"—gradually shifting what's considered politically possible by exposing people to ideas that initially stretch their comfort zones. The authors suggest this approach applies beyond government to any organization seeking to expand its strategic options. By regularly exposing teams to thoughtful explorations of possible futures, leaders can build a mindset where new ideas—sometimes quite surprising or radical—become both desirable and achievable. The authors emphasize that anticipation represents an offensive rather than defensive posture. While many organizations talk about "getting better at reacting to the future," this merely shortens response time when unexpected events occur. True anticipation means considering possibilities before they emerge, allowing organizations to move into opportunity spaces proactively rather than scrambling to catch up after the fact. Over time, this capability becomes not just a nice-to-have but a distinct strategic advantage. Ultimately, the authors argue that futures work isn't about perfect prediction but about building adaptability in the face of inevitable surprise. By systematically assessing readiness across multiple scenarios, organizations can identify common capability gaps regardless of which future emerges, making strategic investments that increase resilience while maintaining the flexibility to pivot as conditions change.

Chapter 6: Build Futures Culture: Embedding Future Thinking

Creating a sustainable futures practice requires moving beyond one-off exercises to develop an organizational culture that values and nurtures future thinking. The authors describe how this cultural shift begins with legitimizing speculation and providing structured opportunities for people to explore possibilities. They share an example from ASOS, which included a future issues forum as part of a global employee gathering. In a chat-show format, they explored six major themes—from the futures of globalization and work to retail and technology—giving over a thousand young staff members exposure to important trends and permission to consider long-term implications in their daily roles. Madeline Ashby shares insights from her teaching experience at Ontario College of Art and Design University, emphasizing that building a futures culture requires vulnerability and trust. She observes that people are often reluctant to admit insecurities about the future of their business or team, or even to acknowledge their hopes and dreams. Creating safe spaces where these conversations can happen naturally is essential for developing meaningful foresight capacity. This means designing processes where comfort with uncertainty can grow organically, rather than forcing premature conclusions. The authors highlight the power of physical spaces dedicated to futures thinking. Several consumer brands they've worked with created internal "futures rooms" that displayed both speculative artifacts and real items collected globally that represented weak signals of emerging trends. Like museum exhibits, these spaces invited curiosity, questions, and ongoing conversation about possible futures. Placing these artifacts in high-traffic areas served as a subtle reminder to keep the future in mind during daily work. Building a futures culture also means appointing advocates who can represent future considerations in present decisions. The authors note encouraging developments like Wales' Commissioner for Future Generations, Sweden's Minister of the Future, and similar roles in Dubai that give future thinking a formal seat at decision-making tables. They suggest that even without such official positions, organizations can informally designate "future representatives" on project teams to ensure long-term implications are considered alongside immediate concerns. A crucial aspect of futures culture is what the authors call "expanding the strategic toolset." Rather than replacing existing approaches to strategy, design, or innovation, futures methods enhance them by providing research-backed ways to consider long-term possibilities and implications. When embedded effectively, these tools help teams develop comfort with uncertainty and maintain the "scenaric stance"—the ability to hold multiple scenarios or possible futures in mind simultaneously. Perhaps most importantly, the authors emphasize that building a futures culture isn't about creating a separate function that operates in isolation. Instead, it's about distributing future awareness throughout the organization, giving everyone from frontline staff to senior executives the permission, vocabulary, and tools to incorporate longer-term thinking into their work. This distributed capacity creates what strategist and writer Dan Hill describes as "drip-feeding culture change"—small but consistent shifts in perspective that gradually transform how an organization approaches uncertainty and possibility. The authors conclude that when futures work becomes a natural part of an organization's thinking, it stops being a specialized activity and starts becoming a distinctive capability—one that allows for more confident navigation of turbulent environments, earlier recognition of opportunities and threats, and ultimately better decisions in the face of accelerating change.

Summary

Throughout our exploration of future-focused strategies, one theme emerges clearly: uncertainty is not something to be eliminated but rather a space where possibility flourishes. The tools and approaches presented—from horizon scanning and scenario development to prototyping and building futures culture—offer practical ways to navigate this space with greater confidence and creativity. As the authors remind us, "Uncertainty requires space, time and resources to explore, understand and value in a useful way." When we provide these conditions, we transform uncertainty from a source of anxiety into a material with which to build. The journey toward future-readiness isn't about perfect prediction but about developing the capacity to sense emerging patterns, imagine alternative possibilities, and adapt as conditions change. This means embracing what Dr. Genevieve Bell calls a moral obligation: "If you see a better world, you are morally obligated to go and make it happen." Your next step is simple but powerful: choose one scanning practice to incorporate into your daily routine. Whether it's setting aside 30 minutes each morning to explore emerging trends, starting a shared document with colleagues to collect interesting signals, or creating a simple prototype of a product or service that might exist in your preferred future, the act of engaging with tomorrow's possibilities begins with today's deliberate attention.

About Author

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Scott Smith

Scott Smith is founder and managing partner of Changeist, a futures research and consulting partnership established in 2007 in the United States, now based in the The Hague.With more than 15 years in futures, Scott and his team have consulted to a range of global institutions, including SWIFT, UNICEF, The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, The Royal Society, Nesta, and the Dubai Future Foundation. He leads engagements with some of the largest and most respected global financial, retail, telecoms, technology and media brands. He has delivered futures projects, talks and workshops in over a dozen countries, across Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East.Scott developed the Strategic Foresight program for Dubai Future Academy, and guest lectures in the Innovation & Future Thinking program at IED Barcelona. He has written for international publications such as The Atlantic, Quartz, WIRED UK, and How We Get to Next, and spoken at major events worldwide, including The Next Web, Lift, South Australia’s Open State, Oxford Futures Forum, Sibos, FutureFest, and NEXT. He is the author of “How to Future: Leading and Sense-Making in an Age of Hyperchange,” published by Kogan Page Inspire.

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