Advanced Methods in Scenario Development: Uncovering Causality and Using the Delphi Method

Abstract

Our approach to scenario development has been focused on identifying causal linkages between driving forces—such that unfolding futures can be described in a persuasive way. As such our intuitive logics scenario development method results in four causally-identified futures. Note that our focus is on prediction—but prediction within each scenario, based on the causal logic of how a particular scenario unfolds from the present to the future. Emphasis within the workshop based scenario development process is, simply, on identifying ‘cause’. However, cause, in practice, is left undefined and, as such, workshop participants often use the proffered ‘arrows of influence’ in an unsophisticated, simplistic way, i.e., loosely and without specific direction by the workshop facilitator.