This five-day masterclass will provide participants with hands-on application of the scenario planning process – which is tried and tested in a wide range of organisations and is delivered by renowned Professor George Burt. Ideal for leaders looking to identify potential issues before they become real problems, and have strategic business conversations that focus on long-term goals and company direction.

Scenario planning is an approach designed to help managers and executives, across all types of organisations, to engage with uncertainty and contextual driven change. Managing through uncertainty is increasingly seen as a critical strategic leadership capability. The ability to make sense of the changing context, to avoid premature decisions, and to identify the hidden, non-obvious, and counter-intuitive signals of contextual are the basis of ensuring the sustainability and success of an organisation.

Scenario planning has its roots in the work of Herman Kahn at the Hudson Institute, where Kahn coined the phrase “Thinking about the Unthinkable”, as he challenged military planners and policy makers primarily about nuclear war and how to avoid it. Scenario planning was subsequently about in business, with a wide range of organisations, including Shell, British Airways, GE, Nokia, adopting it as part of their strategic planning process.

The scenario planning process has evolved and developed over time for use in organisations who do not have the resources or time of such large multi-nationals. Strategic conversations and organisational narratives, shaped by the scenario planning process, are now widely accepted as providing time and space to share and challenge assumptions underpinning strategic decisions. This is known as “the gentle art of re-perceiving” where the basis of organising is re-defined to ensure sustainability and success in the future.

This five-day masterclass will provide participants with hands-on application of the scenario planning process. The five-day scenario planning process is tried and tested in a wide range of organisations. A ‘client’ organisation will be nominated from the participants and will be used throughout the five days, culminating with a presentation setting out proposals for the future. The hands-on application will help all participants to experience the process and build understanding and confidence to apply it subsequently in any organisation.

Who is the program for?

This program is designed for managers and executives from any organisation to help them engage with uncertainty (and disruption) and managing the organisation’s strategic conversations in the future.

Learning outcomes

• A deep understanding of the scenario planning process and its role to manage strategic conversations
• An understanding of how to develop and apply scenarios for any organisation
• An understanding of how scenarios challenge managerial assumptions and compare the participants’ perceptions of their ‘client’ organisation at the outset and at the conclusion of the module
• An understanding of how each individual participant copes with uncertainty and overcomes the emotional experience of an unknown outcome at the outset of the module
• A deep understanding of the process involved in “the gentle art of re-perceiving”

None for this course.