Scenario Planning and Strategic Conversation

Scenario Planning and Strategic Conversation is a highly experiential five-day workshop focusing on the skills of effective scenario planning.

Scenario planning is a powerful approach used to explore volatility, uncertainty, complexity and develop plausible futures that map out such issues. Scenarios, in combination with the organisation's business idea, facilitates a strategic conversation that helps to determine a course of action and assists in resource allocation in complex and rapidly changing environments.

The course is explored in the context of real organisational problems. Participants work in groups, focusing on a particular organisation of their choice. Through the implementation of scenario planning tools participants develop a number of scenarios that explore the key concerns in the scenario agenda. Implications for the organisation are drawn out and considered in the context of strategic change. The process results in new insights about potential strategic risks for the organisation.

Learning Outcomes

As a result of this program participants will:

• Become aware of practical approaches to strategy in situations of uncertainty and ambiguity
• Be able to explore and analyse the contextual environment through the development of a ‘set’ of scenarios
• Establish the characteristics of success for an organisation, that is, its ‘Business Idea’
• Consider issues involved in organisational perception and learning, as well as issues that limit learning
• Develop awareness of intervention possibilities
• Consider the relationship between scenario planning and strategy
• Initiate a scenario based planning exercise in a practical setting.