Strategic foresight: learn how to make sense and use the futures in uncertain times
- Enseignant(s): G.Rizzo
- Titre en français: Prospective stratégique : comprendre, saisir et interpréter les futurs afin de s’orienter dans la complexité d’un monde changeant
- Cours donné en: anglais
- Crédits ECTS: 3 crédits
- Horaire: Semestre d'automne 2021-2022, 2.0h. de cours (moyenne hebdomadaire)
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séances
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site web du cours
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Formations concernées:
Baccalauréat universitaire ès Sciences en management
Baccalauréat universitaire en sciences économiques -
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ObjectifsThe future is not a linear continuation of the present — it is exponential and complex. The future does not exist in the present, but we can study a range of images of futures to be prepared for the unknown and the uncertain. This course prepares you to gain a better grasp of why and how you imagine the future, what futures you imagine, and use the futures as your ace up the sleeve. You are going to be in the world of work by 2030 and a part of you will be among the leaders in 2040. The world is going to be so tremendously different in 2040 that you need to anticipate the changes and understand the forces under which the world and extended worlds transform. Most of the time “black swans” are just a failure of our ability to open up our aperture and thinking broadly enough. We can in no way forecast, but we can widen up our view of futures for effective foresight, so that “we should have known better” is not part of your conversation. As future leaders, you will need to anticipate the “next big thing” and learn to consider a wide range of risks and opportunities and their impacts (first-, second-, third-order consequences). We have plenty of example in recent business history of how apparently invincible incumbents in large fields were unable to even see the disruption coming (Nokia), or did not have the courage to understand the potential of disrupting their own business (Kodak). COVID-19 was a warm-up lap for the incoming disruptions lying ahead, which will be caused by technology convergence, global warming, reorganizing geopolitical forces, social instability, and human skills obsolescence — just to name some. You will need to be ready to harness the positive forces and the opportunities lying beyond uncertainty. That’s what you will learn in this course: skills to move your thinking towards the unthinkable. In this course you will learn a very particular set of skills. A part of it is good for your employer and your career: as much as we hear a lot about data literacy, digital literacy, game literacy, there is another crucial literacy for the 21st century: futures literacy. Futures Literacy enhances our ability to sense, and make sense of, our ever‑changing world. It helps us to prepare for an uncertain future marked by rapid technological advancements. Futures literacy and anticipation have been strong in demand as a new emerging internal strategic service to C-suite and Board level. Another part of it is good for you as an individual who will have to navigate the ever-changing world of work. Based on current challenges, Futures Literacy will allow you to learn about the future with more serenity, understanding options and ways ahead, to design a range of your life trajectories. Anticipation and foresight have been widely used in the world of defense — this is a precious occasion to learn a part of them for business and management and see what others don’t; beat your own and your organization’s biases, and Christensen’s innovator’s dilemma; and avoid being laser-focused on one linear future, on just one ultra-narrow field of view. Don’t let foreseeable events arrive as surprises: anticipate and prepare for them. Don’t let possible futures slip through your hands: identify and exploit them. Don’t let your biases prevent you from seeing beyond what is currently plausible: recognize and use them as compasses in the most uncharted waters you can sail. Learn to think like a futurist — and design your positive futures.
Learning Outcomes By the end of the course, the student must be able to:
Transversal skills
Teaching methods
Expected student activities
ContenusThis class will give you the fundamentals about strategic foresight and its relevance for business strategy and new business models; anticipatory systems and processes and why we need or want to anticipate events and trends to improve decisions in the present; futures literacy as an emerging science helping us to sense and make sense of futures; and futures studies as the discipline guiding us in this process of exploration and creation.
Topic 1: WHY FUTURES
Whether you are a defense expert or an SME leader, or if you’re planning your own career, we all strive to anticipate and use futures – for instance using scenarios – to improve the way we can reach our objectives. We will discuss what drives us to do so. Topic 2: WHAT FUTURES
We are all exposed to a myriad of dystopian futures rather than utopian futures; think of Hollywood movies — 200 end-of-the-world movies for less than a dozen paradise-on-earth. We will discuss why we are drawn to the dark and how to illuminate the broadest scope of possibilities – all the possibilities which future young talents ought to seize and exploit. We will give a name to our biases that box us into this “dark” narrative and move past that, learning how to use our biases as compass through alternative pathways, enhancing one of our most precious skills — imagination. Topic 3: HOW FUTURES
We will learn and practice methods, drawn from the Defense world, to imagine the future depending on the final objective, the desired outcome, and the means at hand. We will discover numerous foresight tools, regularly used in strategic foresight in business or public policy environments, among which scenario planning, road-mapping, horizon scanning to name only a few. We will learn how to embrace complexity rather than just lamenting it as some cursed and inescapable source of “wicked problems”.
Keywords Anticipation, Foresight, Futures Literacy, Futures Studies, Technological Revolution, Horizon Scanning, Megatrends, Scenario Planning, Cognitive Bias, Resistances, Contact-Boundary, Future of Work, Future of Education, Future of Security, Future of Cities RéférencesVirtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) No Bibliography
Evaluation1ère tentative
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