"What if?" - a great question to start planning for impact and future growth.
When you're making decisions that will impact your business, it's important to consider all potential outcomes – both positive and negative. "What if?" analysis helps you do just that by exploring different scenarios and their possible implications.
"What if?" analysis is a powerful tool that can be used to make more informed decisions, identify potential risks, and develop strategies to counter potential threats.
For example, businesses all across the globe are currently worried about another wave of COVID-19. By using "what if?" analysis, businesses can develop strategies to counter potential threats and plan for future growth.
When planning for impact and future growth, one of the most important questions to ask is "what if?"
"What if we make this change?"
"What if we do things differently?"
"What if we take this risk?"
Asking "what if?" helps leaders create views on what futures could emerge. It also encourages people to think about how to prepare for alternative futures and how decisions taken today could influence what futures might appear.
"What if?" is a powerful question because it:
Encourages creativity and critical thinking.
Helps to identify risks and opportunities.
Leads to better decision-making.
Allows businesses to develop strategies for a range of different futures.
Why is "What if?" analysis so important?
"What if?" is a question that should be at the heart of all strategic planning. By asking "what if?", businesses can be better prepared for possible, probable and preferred futures and make decisions that will have a positive impact on their organisation's impact and future growth.
"What if?" analysis is a vital tool for businesses because it helps them to:
Make more informed decisions.
Identify potential risks.
Develop strategies for different potential scenarios.
"What if?" analysis is particularly important in today's uncertain climate. With the COVID-19 pandemic still ongoing, businesses are facing unprecedented challenges. "What if?" analysis can help businesses to plan for different potential scenarios and make decisions that will help them to survive and thrive in the current climate.
How do you conduct "What if ?" analysis?
There are a few different methods that can be used to conduct "what if?" analysis. The method we use at insight & foresight is to identify trends and emerging change that could impact your business in 5 to 10 years. We use the Futures Platform™ database that provides us access to over 900 futurist curated trends and emerging change phenomena. We work with our clients through a structured process to identify and map the trends and emerging change most relevant to your organisation's context.
Once we have these trends we survey stakeholders to get their assessment of the impact and probability of each trend phenomenon. This creates a prioritised list that we can then use to create design fiction narratives that build creative responses to the question "What if?"
Why use design fiction as a "What if?" tool?
Design fiction is a great way to do "what if?" analysis because it allows you to explore different potential futures creatively and engagingly. Design fiction is not about predicting the future, it's about exploring what could be and preparing for what might happen next.
To create a design fiction narrative, we start by asking the question "What if?" and then we let our imaginations run wild. We think about all the different ways that the trend phenomena could play out and the implications for the business, society, competitors and customers. We create a story that brings these different elements together. Storytelling is a powerful way to create futures scenarios as it allows people to emotionally engage with the different potential outcomes. Storytelling allows businesses to explore the different implications of their decisions and make more informed choices in an engaging, creative and imaginative way.
Once we have created a design fiction narrative, we then use it as a springboard for discussion and debate. We ask people to think about what they would do if this future scenario became reality. This helps to generate new ideas and strategies that can be used to prepare for different potential futures.
Design fiction is a powerful tool because it helps us to think about the future in new and innovative ways. It also allows us to identify risks and opportunities that we might not have considered before.
How far forward should I be thinking?
5 to 10 years is the ideal timeframe for organisations to be thinking about when planning their futures. This timeframe allows organisations to make decisions that will have an impact on their longer-term growth.
It's important to remember that futures are always changing and what might seem impossible today could be reality tomorrow. For this reason, it's important to revisit your "What if?" analysis regularly to ensure that you are prepared for ever-changing futures.
There are a few key steps that you need to follow to conduct a successful “what if?” analysis.
Define the problem or challenge that you want to explore.
Identify the trends and emerging change that could impact the outcome of the problem or challenge.
Create different scenarios by varying the intensity, probability and combinations of the identified trends and emerging change.
Analyse the results of the different scenarios to see how they would impact the problem or challenge.
Use the insights from the "what if?" analysis to make more informed decisions.
"What if?" analysis is a powerful tool that can be used to make more informed decisions, identify potential risks, and develop strategies to counter potential threats. By running different "what if?" scenarios, businesses can explore the implications of their decisions and develop plans to mitigate risks. "What if?" analysis is particularly important in today's uncertain climate, and it can help businesses to survive and thrive now and into the futures that might emerge.
If you would like to learn more about "what if?" analysis, or if you would like to explore the potential implications of different trends and emerging change, please contact us. The team at insight & foresight would be happy to discuss your specific needs and requirements, and we can tailor a solution to meet your objectives.
