Forward-Thinking Expertise.
Navigate 5-10 years ahead.
At insight & foresight our consulting project services focus on delivering results in three main areas:
Discovery.
Explore how your world is changing. Discover the change that matters most. Build new knowledge to guide your decision-making.
Our exploration and discovery services help you to understand your context for change, identify emerging uncertainties and opportunities, and unlock hidden insights. We use futurist-curated trend data built using academic grade methodologies from the Futures Platform™, we engage your stakeholders to contribute meaning, context and ideas, we co-create powerful change drivers shaping your world and we design deep scenarios to explore alternative futures. You gain a rich understanding of potential change and the capability to sense, shape and hedge your futures with more confidence and greater reliability.
Roadmapping.
Every journey needs a map. Together we determine the actions, steps, and resources needed on the path from now into your futures.
Our road mapping services are built on the awareness our exploration and discovery services bring to light. We help you develop agile and adaptive playbooks to guide your business based on what could appear over the next 5-10 years.
Highly practical and creative, our roadmaps are designed for realities beyond the present – they are living maps that help you navigate uncertainty and change as it happens.
Maintenance.
Change is constant. The world is in flux. Access to timely knowledge and advice can be the difference between success and failure.
Our retainer packages are tailored to your business to provide meaningful guidance when you need it most. Our advisory retainers are based on practical understanding, grounded in foresight and insight-driven thinking. Either annually or bi-annually we can help you stay up to date and on track with the trends and developments affecting your organisation.
insight & foresight is your futures partner – we help you navigate to where the world is heading.
Some of the foresight tools and methods insight & foresight uses include:
Futures Platform™.
The Futures Platform™ serves as the gold standard for future trends, scenarios, and long-term transformations. It provides a comprehensive and collaborative toolbox for foresight, innovation, and strategy. By utilising this platform, insight & foresight provides your organisation with a co-design environment to explore future trends and develop creative solutions.
The data in the Futures Platform™ is built using academic grade methodologies combined with continuous scans of the global landscape, examining multiple angles to identify and explore significant changes and scenarios that may impact society, technology, the economy, the environment and politics over the next 5-20+ years.
Reference: https://www.futuresplatform.com
Scenario Creation.
Scenario Planning is an indispensable strategic tool that allows businesses to anticipate, envision, and respond to a multitude of future developments. This method involves crafting various plausible future scenarios based on your current knowledge and assumptions, which can then be used to test your strategic plans under different circumstances. The objective of scenario planning is not to predict the future accurately, but to understand potential futures and their implications better. By incorporating scenario planning into your strategic framework, you can better prepare for uncertainty, adapt to change, and make proactive decisions that drive your business forward.
Reference: Rhydderch, Alun. (2017). Scenario Building: The 2x2 Matrix Technique.
Design Fiction.
Design Fiction is a creative and imaginative tool used to speculate about potential futures. It uses storytelling, prototypes and artefacts to provoke thought and facilitate discussion about futures. By illustrating possible futures, design fiction stimulates critical thinking, enabling us to contemplate the kind of future we want to create and live in. It's a way of exploring and questioning how emerging change might shape our world and our behaviours, allowing us the opportunity to consider and explore potential challenges and opportunities before they arise. In effect, design fiction is not just about imagining the future, but actively shaping its design.
Reference: Bleecker, J. Foster, N. Girardin, F. Nova, N. (2022) The Manual Of Design Thinking. Near Future Laboratory, Venice Beach, California, USA
Three Horizons.
The Three Horizons framework is a tool used to explore potential futures and create innovative responses. This model is structured around three 'horizons': Horizon 1 is current plans and activities or "business as usual". Horizon 3 is the emerging change and trends appearing now that will become important in the long term. Horizon 2 is the transition zone where we can conduct innovation experiments that may protect the decline of H1 activities and create ways to take advantage of the H3 emerging change and trends we see appearing now. By considering all three horizons, we can develop a comprehensive, long-term perspective on your business, identify potential disruptions, and shape futures that align with your strategic goals.
Reference: Sharpe, B. Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope, Triarchy Press, 2013
Design Thinking.
Discover. Define. Develop. Deliver. The four "Ds" of design thinking provide an effective framework for problem-solving and creative collaboration. Design thinking is a process that involves understanding user needs, exploring multiple options, testing ideas through prototyping, and iterating on the solutions. It's a powerful tool for creating products or services that are both practical and desirable from customers' point of view. When used with scenario planning and design fiction, it can help us to identify and develop innovative solutions that can be implemented in a range of futures.
Reference: British Design Council 2019
Futures Triangle.
The Futures Triangle is a framework designed by Sohail Inayatulla. The futures triangle method revolves around the identification of three distinct factors. Firstly, there is the "pull of futures", which represent the current images of futures that could or should develop. Secondly, we have the "push of the present" which are the forces, trends, catalysts, technologies, and influential individuals that bring about change. Lastly, we consider the "weights of the past", which act as barriers to the realisation of specific future scenarios.
The Futures Triangle provides a comprehensive approach to scenario planning and helps organisations to anticipate futures and develop effective strategies for success.
Reference: Inayatullah, S. (2008) “Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming” foresight journal, VOL. 10 NO. 1 2008, pp. 4-21
Futures Wheel.
The Futures Wheel is a widely utilised foresight method that helps to visually map the primary and secondary future impacts of a particular trend, event, or development. The method starts with a focal issue placed at the centre of the wheel. Branching out from the core are the direct, or 'first order' implications of this issue. Further branching out from these first-order impacts are potential second-order impacts, and so forth. This allows for an exploration of ripple effects, unveiling potentially overlooked consequences. It's essentially a structured brainstorming technique that promotes comprehensive thinking and is particularly useful in assessing the potential impacts of decisions within an organisation or for highlighting the unanticipated side effects of emerging change.
Reference: Glenn, Jerome. (2021). The Futures Wheel Chapter 6 in The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0
Strategic Foresight.
Strategic Foresight is a systematic, participatory process involving the collection and assessment of intelligence about future conditions or situations to aid decision-making in the present. It's about exploring the plausible, possible, preferable, and preventable futures. By leveraging various tools, methods, and techniques, such as scenario planning and trend analysis, strategic foresight empowers organisations to explore uncertainties and anticipate potential challenges and opportunities. It's a vital practice for futures-focused organisations, enabling them to navigate change, drive innovation, and make informed decisions that contribute to long-term success. Its ultimate goal is to create resilient strategies capable of adapting to a variety of future contexts.
Read more about how we work at:
delta∆effect
Looking at managing a changing world and how companies can get it right.