"Scenario as a Tool in Management Development"

By Gill Ringland and Michael Owen
The scenario creation process can provide a team with shared insights and a shared language. This has led to the use of scenarios as a management development tool, and a team-building tool. The methodology is the same. Here two examples are considered of using scenarios for the development of young professional managers who have been identified as ‘high flyers
The full article is reproduced here

"Using scenarios to improve Marketing"

By Andrew Curry, Gill Ringland and Laurie Young in Strategy and Leadership . Reprints are available from Gill Ringland at Sami

"Scenarios for Health and Safety in 2017"

In 2006 the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) engaged Infinite Futures and SAMI Consulting to lead a scenario-building project with the in-house Horizon Scanning team at the Health and Safety Laboratory. The aim of the project was to develop scenarios for the ‘Future of Health and Safety in 2017’ in order to bring together the findings of the HSE horizon scanning system. An HSE Research Report describing the project has been published on the HSE website here or at www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr600.pdf.

"The Future of Services to the Public - Reviewing the Pressures and Challenges for Long Term Change "

By SAMI consulting, published by CIPFA, this report summarised a project undertaken by SAMI Consulting for CIPFA in 2006 and 2007.

The project was sponsored by lead sponsor CIPFA, with TUC, LSC, ICAEW, LGA, NHS Confederation, and the National Housing Federation and additional support from ACEVO, CBI and Confed. A research programme was led by SAMI, and the core questions were the focus of a Symposium held in Spring 2007.

The full report is in two parts, Volume One - the main report and Volume Two - the appendices.

"Resilence in Corporate Strategy"

By SAMI Fellow, John Reynolds, presented to the Richmond Group meeting early in 2007 .
A Powerpoint copy of his presentation can be seen here (1.7Mb).

Should we believe the IEA’s scenarios for 2050?

By Gill Ringland of SAMI Consulting
In its report on world strategic energy options for last July’s G8 summit in St. Petersburg the International Energy Agency (IEA) used scenarios to describe how energy technologies could develop between now and 2050, in support of the G8 Plan of Action. This article onsiders whether the IEA’s scenarios fulfilled the role of exploring qualitatively different futures, or whether they were trapped in the assumptions of the present.
The full article is reproduced here

Scenarios for India and China 2015: Implications for the City of London

By SAMI Consulting and Oxford Analytica, published by City of London, October 2006
Download the full report or executive summary from the City of London website:
Download the India China full report PDF (753kb)
Download the India China executive summaryPDF (293kb)
They can also be found on our website, full report and the executive summary.

"Best Practice in Corporate Governance"

By Adrian Davies, Gower Press, 2006

"The cultural contradictions of managing change: using horizon scanning in an evidence-based policy context",

By SAMI Principal Dr Wendy Schultz in Foresight Vol 8 No 4.
This paper won the award for best paper in "Foresight" in 2006.
The main point of the paper is to point out that there is a cultural contradiction between horizon scanning and traditional research. Traditional research looks for consensus, is mostly mono-disciplinary and theoretically grounded. Horizon scanning for emerging issues is based often on one or two cases, and experts will often violently attack reports of emerging issues of change, as they represent challenges to current paradigms and structures of expertise, power, and entitlement; are often noticed initially by fringe sources and challenge previous theoretical structures, forcing the construction of new theories. This cultural contradiction is one of the reasons that organisations - whether public or private sector - find it hard to react effectively to the results of horizon scanning.
The full article is reproduced here

Burning Issues

By Martin Duckworth, Utility Week, February 2006.
Among scientists, there is more or less a consensus that climate change is real and happening now. They agree that the models are getting better and more credible and that the IPCC climate projections over the next century are reasonable, although a big margin of uncertainty still remains. In conjunction with the Futures Forum, we looked at four scenarios where the likely outcome was determined by public attitudes and by whether continuing research found the climate change threat to be limited or serious. Click here for full text

As Radical as Money

In an article in GC, September 2006, Geoff Llewellyn argues that the consequences of the identity card could prove as profound as those that came from the development of fiduciary money Click here for full text

New Technology Wave - Scenarios for Europe in 2020

A paper edited by Gill Ringland in 2004. The High Level Expert Group (HLEG), advising the EC on the research implications of the converging nano, bio, info and cogno technologies (NBIC), requested the work reported here. Scenarios or Europe in 2020 were developed to inform the discussions of the HLEG on the development of research agendas and policy options related to converging echnologies.

We found that Europe in 2020 will be affected by a number of factors, including demographic change and technology advances, but the major effect of NBIC technologies in particular on the economy and society will be later than 2020. However there would be many pecific industries and processes affected by NBIC technologies in the 2020 timescale, and thus research agendas well before then. Click here for full text (pdf)

An uncertain future for management consulting

A paper by Gill Ringland and Azfar Shaukat, 2004. What will the world of management consultancy look like in 2020? After decades of astonishing growth in which the management consultancy industry has trebled in size to $120 billion per year over eight years, the future looks decidedly uncertain.A variety of complex forces have converged,squeezing the industry in many dimensions simultaneously, with far-reaching implications to its structure and future. Click here for full text (pdf)

Scenario planning: answering the "so what" question for operating managers

This paper by Gill Ringland was published in "Strategy & Leadership" in November 2003. Scenario thinkers and operational managers do not find it easy to communicate with each other. This paper discusses ways in which scenarios can be used in the line units of the organisation and the role of strategists and corporate planners in making this bridge. It uses case studies to illustrate five applications: to generating options, portfolio management, business plans, market planning and pattern recognition.

Scenarios For The Future Of Europe’s Regions

This paper by Alexander Fink, of the Scenario Management International, Germany and Michael Owen, of St Andrews Management Institute, UK, was presented at the World Future Society Conference in July 2003. In November 2002, a scenario planning project was undertaken to explore "The Future of Europe’s Regions" - an issue which will assume increasing importance as the process of EU enlargement moves ahead in the coming years.

Participants came from 13 European countries. The scenario horizon extended to twenty years ahead; and a fairly pragmatic definition of what constitutes a European "region" was adopted, to embrace both administrative and cultural dimensions. More than seventy separate factors were initially identified: these spanned influences deriving from within the European regions; influences emanating from the European environment that surrounds the European regions; and factors that contain implications for the development of the general, more global sphere that surrounds the European regions.

These factors produced five coherent, credible scenarios of how Europe’s regions could develop over the next twenty years. The scenarios highlighted the key driving forces that will determine the outcomes for Europe’s regions over the time-scale. The contradictions and paradoxes exposed pose many profound challenges for European citizens and policy makers, and challenge the historic US-Europe relationship.

Application of scenario planning to corporate social responsibility

This paper by Gill Ringland and Adrian Davies was published in the Corporate Social Responsibility Monitor in March 2003. It examines the role of scenario planning in corporate social responsibility, giving examples from real life. It shows that scenario planning provides a process for structuring the development of CSR policies and controlling their implementation.

Using scenarios to focus R&D

This paper by Gill Ringland was published in "Strategy & Leadership" in January 2003. It focuses on the role of scenarios in planning Research and Development (R&D). R&D programmes often focus on the technology, which is relatively forecastable. But the output of R&D programmes will enter a world in which lifestyles and society are changing. By using scenarios to explore alternative views of the future, R&D programmes can be designed to anticipate change, to watch for signs of the changes, and to be more robust. The paper describes in some detail an example of using scenarios for an Information and Communication Technology R&D programme. The implications for corporate planners are drawn out.

"Scenarios in Business”

By Gill Ringland
John Wiley, April 2002, ISBN 0-470-84382-9

Direct-to Consumer Communications of Rx Medicines

Mike Owen is the joint author with Gary Lyon (Nicholas Hall & Company, 2002)

"Scenarios in Public Policy”

By Gill Ringland
John Wiley, April 2002, ISBN 0-470-84383-7

Making the most of scenario planning

A paper by Gill Ringland, March 2001. Scenarios are beginning to be widely used in the public sector, as well as in business. Click here for full text

A Strategic Approach to Corporate Governance

by Adrian Davies (Gower 1999) This book builds on earlier experience and research to achieve a new synthesis. A further book "The Practice of Corporate Governance" is due out in early 2006.

Scenarios for Scotland - A Journey to 2015

A sponsored scenario planning study of Scotland's future, published in 1999, prepared by SAMI Consulting, St Andrews University and Strathclyde University. Full report available here

The Strategic Role of Marketing

by Adrian Davies (McGraw-Hill 1995).

Strategic Leadership

by Adrian Davies (Woodhead Faulkner 1991)

Other papers by Gill Ringland are:

"Scenario Planning”, for Bloomsbury Business Encarta, April 2001.
"Scenarios in ICL”, a chapter for “Prospectives Etudes”, March 2001
"Innovation in communicating ideas about the future”, International Journal of Innovation, March 2000
"Why Forecasts go Wrong”, Long Range Planning, October 1999
"London in 2020”, Planning in London, March 1999
"London in 2020”, Gresham College, Barnards Inn, Holborn, London, February 1999
"Why we get forecasts wrong”, Entretiens Science & Defence, November 1998
"Changes in Telecoms Traffic”, with Nuno Caldeira, Handbook on Telecoms in the 21st Century for Telecoms Managers, TUA, February 1998
"Why are planners talking Scenarios?”, Accountancy, January 1998
"Scenario Planning – Managing for the future”, John Wiley, ISBN 0-471-97790-X, November 1997