Scenario planning for coaches

Category: Coaching Notes

Coaching is about raising awareness and setting goals. I use a very simple but powerful system for scenario planning, which can easily be applied in a coaching situation. It was developed in South Africa and taught to me by Clem Sunter.

Scenario planning is a powerful business tool. Using scenarios equips people to think constructively about the future and to plan for it. It is not about planning for one set of events (which almost certainly won’t happen), but for setting up systems for monitoring what actually does happen in such a way that the individual or organisation is able to appreciate and respond effectively to changes as they evolve.

The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it, but to prepare for it. Many factors contribute towards shaping the future. Some, such as national elections, have a range of possible outcomes, only one of which will occur. Others, like some weather trends, are simply unpredictable.

The future is complex; it involves outcomes that are not intended and not expected, as well as those we plan for. However, many of the trends that will determine the future are already evident.

In managing uncertainties for the future, organisations often use planning models that extrapolate existing trends. Although the future will result from a combination of trends, it is not enough to consider the effect of a few trends continuing as currently predicted. Rather, we should consider what might happen to accelerate or decelerate each of many trends – and then look specifically for places in the system where different trends might combine to make change faster, where they conflict with each other, thereby slowing down or even halting a change, and for particular combinations that might cause a significant discontinuity that would impact on operations.

A good discipline is to consider political, economic, environmental, sociological and technological developments and to look for thresholds which could lead to dramatic change.

Start with what we know

Scenario planning starts with existing trends that are known. It extrapolates these forward to the required future timeframe using experts to predict the likely development of the trends. Each ‘model future’ so devised is carefully prepared to ensure that the desired timeframe, typically 10 years into the future, is kept in focus, and that scenario participants’ thinking doesn’t either remain too bogged down in present-day concerns or fly off into an unrealistic far-future.

By examining factors affecting the development of the trends it is then possible to identify moments of comparative upheaval when change is much more likely. Understanding trends in this way equips businesses to respond more effectively as external influences come to bear. Pinpointing these moments of upheaval is invaluable in enabling them to exert their own influence at the right time in order to influence change to their advantage.

Scenario planning raises awareness

Scenario planning is a participative educational process that helps organisations to analyse trends and become more sensitive to signs of change so that they can consider how to respond to events before they happen. It is not about making plans, but is the process whereby management teams change their mental models of the business environment and the world. By presenting other ways of seeing the world, scenarios give managers different perceptions of reality, leading to strategic insight beyond their normal experience.

Because scenarios are stories that unfold in a sequentially organised manner, they can be viewed as multiple pathways into the future. Each path denotes a hypothetical condition of the environment to which an option for action can be attached: “If the future turns out this way, I will do that.” By understanding the trends that will drive the future it is possible not only to be better prepared for developments, but to influence the system in order to achieve a better outcome.

Scenario planning can be undertaken in an hour or so – and can be a useful discipline before specific decisions are made. Conversely it can be a full time activity for a specialist research team.

Brefi Group approach

The Brefi Group approach to scenario planning involves the following stages: -

Review and record those things that we can forecast but cannot control

Review and record those things that we cannot forecast and cannot control

Research and summarise key data, recognising the potential relationship between them. Select the key variables to model.

Identify the relationships between these variables and draw diagrams.

Create three to five different models of the future. These should not represent ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’, but rather different mixes of parameters to give a greater richness to the learning

When these models have been generated, teams can now create scenarios with descriptions of what they would be like and comments on key milestones along the route. These descriptions should be sufficiently rich for participants to ‘live’ in them and to gain greater insights into how these alternative futures might unfold.

Scenario planning for coaches

This technique is very simple and ideal for a coaching situation. If you want to be truly in charge of your destiny, you first need to know your limitations. This might cause you to be humbler than you thought, although you might also be surprised about how much you do control. Just ask: -

What are the things that you can forecast but cannot control? For example, what behaviours in your organisation or market get standard responses – whether we like them or not. We call these the rules of the game.

What are the things you can neither control nor forecast? Identify key uncertainties and explore some possible scenarios of what might happen in different circumstances. These might refer to a competitor's behaviour or a management decision. Based on these scenarios you can then choose some options. What strategy will you follow, based upon your examination of these scenarios? Which is most likely to succeed, regardless of how external events develop?

These questions provide an effective means of exploring the 'Reality' and 'Options' stages of the GROW model of coaching.

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