The Game of Foresight, a One-Day Experiential Course

Introduction

Everyday we make decisions based on assumptions about the future. All too often our businesses, our organisations, and us … don’t examine these assumptions about the future, and we are living for a ‘used future’, the context has changed but our mindsets have not! Change is happening all around us, and when we widen our gaze, there are threats to avoid, opportunities to access, and visions that inspire us. So we actually need to challenge our assumptions, renew our understanding of the social changes that impact us, and renew our vision for the future.

Strategic Foresight provides critical perspectives and methods for helping us to navigate our changing world. Foresight helps us to make decisions in the present with our eyes wide open to the horizons of change, actions which are aligned to our preferred futures. Without foresight and vision, we hardly know where are actions are taking us. By challenging and renewing our assumptions about the future, we gain the ability to make decisions and take actions that are consistent with how we want the future to be.

Invitation

You are invited to this introductory one-day foresight course, August 4th in Melbourne, taught completely through the medium of games. If you want to learn cutting edge foresight thinking and techniques to apply to your organisation or business, or if you love to play games, or both, this course is for you.

The course is based on the “Five Modes of Foresight” approach developed by Jose Ramos. Five Modes is a holistic, easy to understand and apply approach which includes: Forecasting, Scenarios, Perspective Taking, Embodiment and Shared Action. Participants will learn about each Mode by playing games that provide key experiences, ideas and techniques.

The course will be facilitated by Jose Ramos and Gareth Priday from Action Foresight. (Bios below)

*All participants will get a digital resource pack they can use to run the games on their own.

Eventbrite - Foresight through Games

Course Outline

Introduction

The course begins by presenting the Five Modes of Foresight approach. This provides a framework for the holistic application of strategic foresight.

Mode 1: Forecasting

We then launch straight into the The Weak Signals Forecasting Game. Inspired by Futurist Dr. Elina Hiltunen, The Weak Signals Forecasting Game is a game process that gives players an opportunity to test and refine assumptions related to forecasts, by employing weak signals analysis. Players bet against each other based on their perception of the relative weakness or strength of a signal or “future sign”.

Mode 2: Scenarios

The next game, scenario windtuneling, uses a process whereby participants play with the potential for interaction between various trends and emerging issues, exploring their implications and developing scenario sketches that test participant’s strategy assumptions. The game provides the basic principles and processes for understanding how scenarios are developed, and an understanding of the principle of ‘windtunneling’ for strategy testing.

Mode 3: Perspective Taking

We then do a game called the Polak Game, developed by Dr. Peter Hayward. In this game, participant get to experience different generic worldviews, and how taking these perspectives shapes the nature of how we see social systems and the strategies for change we employ.

Mode 4: Embodiment

The fourth game asks participants to embody the future through a particular role, using the Sarkar game, also developed by Dr. Peter Hayward, and based on the work of Dr. Sohail Inayatullah. The Sarkar game gives participants an opportunity to experience the challenge of working for change within a complex system.

Mode 5: Shared Action

The fifth game bridges foresight with action. Participants will play the Futures Action Model Game, developed by Dr. Jose Ramos and Gareth Priday, in which teams are challenged to design solutions in the context of the emerging future. Configurations emerge between the future, the design ecosystem, and global pioneers which lead to novel insights and solutions.

Learning Outcomes

  • A holistic understanding of the different modes of foresight and how they fit together (based on the Five Modes of Foresight approach).
  • An understanding of modes of foresight based on experiential processes, rather than just abstract learning, aiding memory and comprehension.
  • An introduction to at least 5 key foresight frameworks and methods, with the critical concepts for each game.
  • The experience of playing foresight games that can help in running the game in your organisation / community.
  • An emerging awareness of what modes are needed in different contexts, and how the different modes can be applied in organisational / personal / community domains.

*Please note that many of these processes require movement. If you want to do the course and are movement restricted or are a person with a disability, please contact the organiser so that we can find a way to make it work.

Schedule

9:00 – 9:30 Introducing ourselves, introducing foresight
9:30 – 9:50 Overview of the Five Modes
9:50 – 10:50 The Weak Signals Forecasting Game
11:00 – 11:15 Morning Tea
11:15 – 12:30 The Scenarios Windtunneling Game
12:30 – 1:15 Lunch
1:15 – 2:15 Polak Game
2:15 – 3:15 Sarkar Game
3:15 – 3:30 Afternoon Tea
3:30 – 4:45 Futures Action Model Game

… to 5:30 Game Reflect and Review

About the facilitators

Dr. Jose Ramos is founder of Action Foresight, a Melbourne-based business that focuses on bridging transformational futures with present-day action. He holds a Doctorate from Queensland University of Technology in Global Studies and Strategic Foresight and has taught and lectured on futures research, public policy, social innovation and globalization studies at the National University of Singapore, Swinburne University of Technology  the University of the Sunshine Coast and Victoria University. He is senior consulting editor for the Journal of Future Studies, and has over 50 publications spanning economic, cultural and political change. He is originally from California from Mexican American and Indigenous ancestry, now residing in Melbourne Australia with his wife De Chantal, son Ethan and daughter Rafaela.

Gareth Priday is a foresight practitioner and researcher with a focus on systemic innovation and Living Labs, with a Master of Management in Strategic Foresight. He is a co-founder of the Australian Living Labs Innovation Network (ALLIN), has held a research positions with the Queensland University of Technology (Smart Services CRC) as a foresight researcher. He has taught Foresight at Swinburne University of Technology and has published in the Journal of Futures Studies and presented at a number Futures and Innovation conferences. His first career was in the financial services sector working for large international banks in the UK and Australia (UBS Warburg, Macquarie, ABN Amro, Royal Bank of Scotland) where he delivered on large scale global projects.

Transforming Governance for People and Planet

Over the past six years I’ve had the pleasure of working with many great people in the P2P Foundation and the commons movement. A large part of this life thread has to do with new forms of governance. As I’ve stepped through various projects, the same issue of governance has come up again in again – however always with variations, always contingent on context.

It is such a crucial time in human history. It feels as if we are capable of transforming our world, and at the same time we are at the edge of the abyss. In my analysis, governance is at the heart of the great challenges we face – whether or not our societies can protect and create that which we mutually depend on for our survival and wellbeing, our multifaceted commons. We are at a crossroads. Will we live in a world of oligarchs, where antiquated systems, monied interests, elites and corruption undermine our capacity for wise and effective social navigation? Or will the aspirations for distributed, participatory and contributory decision-making create a world of deep democracy and transparency where citizens have real lateral power in forging equitable and sustainable pathways?

Some of my initial ideas on this were put together in this book chapter on the Futures of Governance. Overtime with others I’ve begun to formulate some more general ideas for how governance works across commoning activities, such as through a recent paper co-authored with Michel Bauwens on an Ecology of the Commons.

This is a shared journey and an ongoing exploration for all of us in this movement. Together with Dr. Michelle Maloney, founder of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance and the New Economy Network Australia (NENA), we have developed this one day course called “Transforming Governance for People and Planet” as both an introduction to thinking about the futures of governance and democracy, and as an opportunity to work on synthesis. How do we make sense of the many contexts, threads, innovations in a way that can provide orientation and empowerment in terms of how we see ourselves, individually and collectively, as agents of change?

So in the course we will explore the outline of shifts taking place from a global perspective, current challenges, and the many new innovations, experiments and pathways that are harbingers of change. From the community meeting to the office and work environment, to our local municipal, state and federal systems, and to the global system, we know the context has shifted and the stage has been set for dramatic changes. We will ask the question to participants, at what scale and where do we want to play? The course will provide an overview of the big trends in governance and provide ways in which participants can consider how they want to participate and shape the future. The course intents to bring forth ideas for transforming governance in plain language, with strategies that anyone can use to empower themselves and their communities.

This workshop will present and explore:

  • the idea of the “commons” as a framework for rethinking governance;
  • how the commons framework provides answers to the critical challenges we face in areas such as: resource management, ecological protection / rights of nature, addressing oligarchy, protecting digital / knowledge commons, humanising and democratising our work and community life, etc;
  • an overview of critical historical shifts that bring into relief the great transitions we are experiencing in the early 21st century;
  • examples from around the world that demonstrate transformations in governance, and which point to new futures – the many new innovations, experiments and pathways that are emerging around the world in response to our challenges;
  • a deep questioning of when our democracies protect and build the commons, and when they undermine them, and what strategies we might take as societies to ensure healthy democracy and the protect and build our commons.

Specific topics that will be covered include:

  • bioregional governance
  • commons governance
  • workplace democracy and decentralised decision making
  • liquid democracy (and other e-democracy systems)
  • rights of nature / Earth jurisprudence
  • urban collaborative governance
  • peer to peer / digital commons governance
  • participatory and contributory democracy
  • overcoming the challenges of oligarchy / plutocracy
  • global / planetary governance
  • anticipatory governance

The workshop will be run as a mix of presentations, audio-visual content, interactive discussions, games and self-guided reflection.

By the end of the workshop, participants will understand the big shifts and issues in governance, and the ways in which they can participate in our great transitions and in shaping the future.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP PRESENTERS

  • Dr. Jose Ramos, writer, futurist and director of Action Foresight, brings over 15 years’ experience writing about cultural, political and economic change and designing, teaching and facilitating courses on social change, strategic foresight, commons governance and socio-political transformation.
  • Dr Michelle Maloney, lawyer and National Convenor of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) has been working for 25 years at the intersection of ecological and social justice, and is passionate about building Earth centred law, governance and ethics.

Registration info is HERE

* Several scholarships are available for students and others who wish to attend. Contact us for details.

For more information: Jose Ramos – [email protected]

Linking Foresight and Action

The following is an adapted excerpt from a book chapter written for Rowell, L. L., Bruce, C. D., Shosh, J. M., & Riel, M. M. (Eds.). (2017). The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research. Palgrave Macmillan. The book chapter is entitled: “Linking Foresight and Action: Toward a Futures Action Research”.

*************

For over a decade I have been involved in a unique enterprise, to explore, document and integrate Action Research approaches with Futures Studies. This rather obscure endeavor, which from the outside may seem arcane, for me is core to addressing the great social and ecological challenges we face today. Because of this inner direction, I continue to develop this confluence into hybrid approaches to human and social development.

After a degree in comparative literature and on the back of the experience of globalization living in Japan, Taiwan and Spain, in the year 2000 I entered a Masters degree in ‘Strategic Foresight.’ What excited me was the emphasis on systems analysis, visioning, and social change. I was attracted to the idea that a group of people could envision a future they desired and then potentially create it. I entered the Futures Studies field with a desire for transformational change.

Futures studies gave me critical thinking and tools and frameworks for exploring the long term, however a ‘discrepancy’ emerged. Futures Studies clarified the sharp challenges faced by our planetary civilization over the long term. The challenges we addressed were large scale and historical in dimensions, what Slaughter (2002) referred to as a ‘civilizational crisis’: long term climate change, casino capitalism and rising inequality, profound shifts in technology, and other issues. The gap for me related to a question of empowerment. Where and how do we discover agency in creating the world we want? Futures Studies gave me knowledge for forecasting, deconstructing, analyzing and envisioning our futures. But I needed to know how to create change.

Intuitively, I began looking for approaches that would address this gap. When I found action research, I was immediately inspired by the diversity of thinking, approaches and case studies and began playing with the potential overlaps and fusion between the two areas (Ramos, 2002). I also interned with Dr. Yoland Wadsworth, involved myself in the AR community in Melbourne and began to find synergies and opportunities to express the logic of foresight coupled with action through a variety of projects. This work has continued to guide a wide variety of current projects. This chapter details this journey.

The Future as a Principle of Present Action

Slaughter (1995) put forward the idea of ‘foresight’ as a human capacity and quality, in contradistinction to the widespread notion that the ‘future’ is somehow outside us. In sharp contrast to a future state independent of human consciousness, Slaughter located the future in human consciousness, in our human capacity to cognize consequence, change, difference, temporality. The future, he argued, is therefore a principle of present action (Slaughter, 2004). The images we hold of our futures can and should inform wise action in the present.

This simple idea represents a radical departure from previous epistemologies of time, from a fixed and unitary notion of the future to one where ‘the future’ is a projection of consciousness and culture. This embodied and constructivist concept of the future points toward the need to build ethnographic and sociological understandings for how various communities cognize time differently, and how human consciousness and culture mediate decisions and action.

In a number of professional settings, foresight informs action in a variety of ways.

·     In the area of policy, governments at various scales are engaged in a variety of decisions, many which will have enduring effects over decades and may be difficult to undo. Policy foresight helps regions to understand long-term social and ecological changes and challenges, to develop adequate responses.

·     In the area of strategy, businesses require an understanding of how market, technology and policy shifts may create changes in their operating and transactional environments. Strategy foresight helps businesses discover opportunities, address the challenges of fast changing markets, and develop a social and ethical context for business decisions.

·     In the area of innovation and design, foresight can inspire design concepts, social and technical innovations that have a future-fit, rather than only a present-fit. Design and innovation provide the ‘seeds of change’ interventions that can, over many years, grow to become significant change factors, leverage for desirable long-term social change.

The broader and arguably highest role for foresight is to inform and inspire social transformation toward ethical goals (for example ecological stewardship and social justice). In this regard social foresight can play a major role in informing and inspiring social movements and community based social action. Citizens and people from many walks of life have the power to plant the seeds of change, create social innovations, alternatives and experiments that provide new pathways and strategies that can lead to alternative and desirable futures. Foresight can inspire a sense of social responsibility and impetus for social action, at both political and personal levels. In my own life, I have found that as I have cognized various social and ecological challenges, I am compelled to act differently in the present. This has been as simple as using a heater less, changing to low energy light bulbs and installing solar panels, to more entailed commitments like attending climate change and anti-war marches, organizing social alternative events, and even co-founding businesses. The link between foresight and action is at once social, political, organizational and personal, and uniquely different for each person.

Futures Studies’ Road to a Participatory-Action

Like any field, Futures Studies has undergone major shifts over its 50-year history. From my perspective as an action researcher, and building on the work of Inayatullah (1990) and social development perspectives (Ramos, 2004a), I argue that the field has gone through five major stages: Predictive, Systemic, Critical, Participatory and Action-oriented.

From the 1950s to the 1960s, the field was concerned with prediction, in particular macro-economic forecasting, where change was envisaged as linear (Bell, 1997). From the 1970s to the 1980s, the field used various systems perspectives that incorporated more complexity and indeterminacy into its inquiry and scenarios and alternative futures emerged (Moll, 2005). From the 1980s and 1990s, interpretive and critical perspectives emerged that incorporated post-modern, post-structural and critical theory influences, where change was seen related to discursive power (Slaughter, 1999). From the 1990s to the present, participatory approaches have flourished. The most recent shift puts an emphasis on action-oriented inquiry, associated with design, enterprise creation, innovation and embodied and experiential processes (Ramos 2006).

To understand these shifts it is important to understand the epistemological assumptions that underpin these modalities. In the linear modality, forecasters believed that the future could actually be predicted. Without a relationship to subjectivity or inter-subjectivity, the future was ‘out-there’ and could be known like a ‘substance’ or thing. There were problems with prediction, however, as many were wrong (Schnaars, 1989), and this perspective could not account for human agency or the ‘paradox of prediction’ – once having made a prediction, other people may decide to work toward an alternative future. It could also not account for complexity, that is, that a variety of variables, factors, and forces interact in complex and difficult to understand ways. Hence the systemic modality was born.

In the systemic modality, instead of attempting to predict a single future, systems analysts created complex models that examined the interactions between a number of variables. Trends and forecasts were still used, but instead of assuming a single future, the ideas and practices for creating scenarios emerged. A number of World Models, including Limits to Growth (Meadows, 1972), took this perspective, providing a number of scenarios relying on the prominence of particular variables, and their interactions. A challenge to this arose when World Models and other systemically informed studies emerged that were inconsistent or which contradicted each other (e.g. Hughes, 1985). Research institutes from different parts of the world produced radically different perspectives on the future. This is where the critical modality brings such contradictions into perspective.

In the critical mode, models or systems for future change have their basis in different cultures, perspectives, discourses and interests, as well depending on whether they were from a ‘developing’ or ‘developed’ world perspective. Variables seen as essential aspects of a system, from a critical view, were an expression of discourse and culture, rather than universal ‘truths’ (Inayatullah, 1998; Slaughter, 1999). This is seen in how gendered power dynamics are expressed in images of the future (Milojevic 1999), or when people are caught in someone else’s discourse on the future, and are in-effect holding a ‘used future’ (Inayatullah, 2008). The critical mode questions default futures and develops alternative and authentic futures. The critical mode affirms the importance of questioning the role of perspective, deepened through engagement in participatory approaches.

Whereas critical futures posits that the future is different based on discourse, culture, and disposition, in the participatory mode or process, contrasting perspectives on the future will be present in the same room or group process. The exercise becomes much less abstract and far more dialogical. The challenge shifts to how people can have useful, enriching and intelligent conversations about the future, while still honoring (indeed leveraging) differing perspectives. The participatory mode uses workshop tools and methods that include previous approaches: identification of trends and emerging issues (predictive), scenario development (systems) and de-constructive approaches (critical). Participation forms the basis for generative conversations about our futures, and is a pathway toward transformative action.

An action modality is what emerges from embodied participation. When people come from culturally and systemically different backgrounds, the potential for conflict and miscommunication exists, but likewise a group based inter-cultural understanding can emerge, and this embodied and emergent meta-formation is critical in developing the potential to create change. When participants can co-develop new narratives, authentic vision and intelligent strategies, people can feel a sense of natural ownership and commitment. Group based inquiry that leads to collective foresight with an understating of shared challenges and a common ground vision for change, can call forth commitment and action.

Each stage in the process relies on previous stages. The systems modality relies on statistically rigorous trends and data to construct scenarios. The critical modality relies on scenarios as objects of deconstruction. The participatory modality relies on all previous modes to be enacted in workshop environments. The action mode relies on participants to come together to create shared meaning and commitment.

**************

What does this all mean for practicing foresight?

Good foresight work, in my opinion, needs to be able to straddle a ‘ladder’ of multiple epistemologies, empirical, critical realist, critical, post structural, participatory and action centered. Indeed, advanced foresight work relies on previous ‘rungs’ to make them possible.

  • Systems based work that may evolve into scenarios is only possible when there is a basis in forecasts. Identification of emerging issues and trends forms the ground work by which intentions can be modelled into systems.
  • When systems are modelled, what begins to become visible is that they are projections based on assumption, some cultural, others disciplinary, others institutional. Critical and post-structural approaches help us to move past naive realist beliefs in the ‘one and true’ system, and allow us to see how perspectives and systems are co-constitutive.
  • Whereas in the critical and post structural approaches the idea of multiple ways of knowing is abstract (e.g. multiple discourses frame an issue), in the participatory modality multiple perspectives are embodied. The challenge is to work with the diversity of perspectives as a resource to envision the future with greater depth and power.
  • Finally, in order to move to action, the participatory is absolutely essential. People need to enter into join inquiry across perspectives to come to a co-diagnosis and shared understanding, which can lead to shared commitment for action.

The following chart summarizes this ‘ladder’ concept.

Thus my opinion, all five of these modalities are needed, in different degrees, to do holistic futures / foresight work. Every context is different, but having these five modalities as resources and as a conceptual scaffold can help us to build in robust approaches to foresight and action. To a certain extent each mode is developmental, building on the previous mode. However I need to provide the caveat that this narrative of futures studies is very much from an action research perspective, and there are many that have narrated the fields history with far more detail than here, and in different terms. This version of futures is also an expression of a worldview. I hope that this framework for futures practice is useful. I have begin to use it in my facilitation and practice and it has been useful for my clients. Finally, many thanks to the various people that have informed my thinking over the years, you know who you are!

References

Bell, W. 1997. Foundations of futures studies Vol. 1. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.

Hughes, B. 1985. World Futures: A Critical Analysis of Alternatives. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Inayatullah, S. 1998. “Causal Layered Analysis: Post-Structuralism as Method.” Futures 30 (8):815-829.

Inayatullah, S. 2008. “Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming.” Foresight 10 (1).

Inayatullah, Sohail. 1990. “Deconstructing and reconstructing the future : Predictive, cultural and critical epistemologies.” Futures 22 (2):115.

Meadows, D, Meadows, D., 1972. The Limits to Growth. London: Pan Books.

Milojevic, I. 1999. “Feminizing Futures Studies.” In Rescuing all our Futures: The Future of Futures Studies, edited by Z. Sardar, 61-71. Westport, Conn: Praeger.

Moll, P. 2005. “The Thirst for Certainty: Futures Studies in Europe and the United States.” In The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies: Professional Edition, edited by R. Slaughter. Brisbane: Foresight International.

Ramos, J. 2002. “Action Research as Foresight Methodology.” Journal of Futures Studies 7 (1):1-24.

Ramos, J. 2004a. Foresight Practice in Australia: A Meta-Scan of Practitioners and Organisations. In Australian Foresight Institute Monograph Series edited by R. Slaughter. Melbourne Swinburne University of Technology

Ramos, J. 2013. “Forging the Synergy between Anticipation and Innovation: The Futures Action Model.” Journal of Futures Studies 18 (1).

Ramos, J. 2006. “Action research and futures studies.” Futures 38 (6):639-641.

Sardar, Z. 1999. “The Problem of Futures Studies.” In Rescuing all our Futures: The Future of Futures Studies, edited by Z. Sardar, 9-18. Westport, Conn: Praeger.

Schnaars, S. 1989. Megamistakes: forecasting and the myth of rapid technological change. New York: The Free Press.

Slaughter, R. 2004. Futures beyond dystopia: creating social foresight. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Slaughter, R. 1999. Futures for the Third Miillenium. St Leonards, N.S.W.: Prospect Media.

Slaughter, R. 1995. The foresight principle,. Westport, CT: Adamantine Press, .

Slaughter, Richard A. 2002. “Futures Studies as a Civilizational Catalyst.” Futures 34 (3-4):349.

Stevenson, T. 2006. “From Vision into Action.” Futures 38 (6):667-671.

Seeking expressions of interest for Anticipatory Experimentation / Bridge Method (AEM)

Over the past year I’ve been in the process of conceptualizing a new approach to action oriented foresight. The approach is called the Anticipatory Experimentation Method (AEM), or “Bridge Method” for short.

The method provides a clear pathway to move from developing a robust and transformational vision of the future, to creating ideas, solutions and prototypes that can be implemented through real-world experiments. The method is a way of bringing the preferred future into the present through experiments that can scale.

In many ways, the method is a culmination of my 17 years working at the intersection of action research and futures studies / foresight. The method integrates a variety of different approaches that I have learned over the years, including the use of games, metaphor, visualization, role-play, reflection and modeling.

Expressions of interest

We seek expressions of interest for those who are interested in applying this method to their organizations.

Because the methodology is new, we seek to offer a significant discount to potential clients and partners, so that we can test the application of the method, refine it and build from this experience.

We would also like the application of the method to be “open-source”,  so that others can learn from its application, however the terms can be negotiated. We want to focus on social impact, and are therefore seeking clients and partners who are oriented toward innovating breakthrough solutions to societal challenges.

The initial application of the method would take between 2 days in a workshop / consultation environment, with the option of further development work if needed. This 2 days can be spread out over a longer period if necessary.

This EoI will remain open for the next several month, or until we find a suitable partner of the application.

More about the Anticipatory Experimentation / Bridge Method

The AEM method entails five stages:

  1. Challenging the used future
  2. Developing a transformational futures vision
  3. Creating a number of prototype ideas
  4. Choosing which prototype ideas to experiment with and running real-world experiments
  5. Upscaling and investing in the experiments with the best promise

First, we challenge the “used future”, which entails exploring the assumptions and images we have about the future, as well as learning about the emerging issues, trends and weak signals that are transforming our social horizons. This is an unlearning process of challenging existing assumptions, moving past what we think we know about the future.

Secondly, we help you develop an integrated vision and support you in creating a transformational futures narrative. The transformational futures narrative articulates the movement from your past to present to preferred future. It is an open ended narrative that requires the world to participate in its fulfilment, a call to action for others to work with you to create this future.

Thirdly, we use methods such as the Futures Action Model to bridge your transformational futures narrative with ideas and prototypes. This includes an R&D process that begins with scanning the landscape of global pioneer projects, and then develops prototypes and models connected to your stakeholder ecosystem. This is done through a combination of R&D and gaming (e.g. the Futures Action Model game).

Fourthly, we set up an experiment using an action learning approach – anticipate, design, connect and evolve. The experiment is that small piece of the future you are bringing into the present. We make sure learning happens that builds in systemic capacity for renewed experiments.

Finally, experiments can be evaluated to see which ones show the most promise and are best aligned to enact your vision. These can then discarded, adjusted or upscaled and invested in to accelerate the movement toward enacting the vision.

Contact Us

For those interested in applying this method in your organisation, please get in contact with us by through our website.

For those who might think that the method could be useful for others that you know, please pass this invitation on.

Anticipatory Governance and the City as a Commons

Anticipatory Governance denotes large scale participatory processes and systems for exploring, envisioning, direction setting and developing a strategy for a region. Anticipatory Governance builds on experiments in Anticipatory Democracy popularized by Alvin Toffler and Clem Bezold,[1] combined with new developments in network based foresight.[2] Anticipatory Governance allows a city to harness the intelligence and wisdom of its citizens in charting intelligent directions for their cities.

In today’s world change is rapid and unpredictable and there is a need for a city to prepare for the horizons of change which bring both threats and opportunities. Tapping into citizen knowledge can create the requisite awareness of change that provides agility and new pathways for city policy making and change efforts. Without anticipation a city’s policies are likely to be reactive at best and misguided at worst. Anticipation allows a city’s policies to be adaptive while driving toward preferred futures, policies that intelligently surf the tsunamis of change.[3]

It is also important that the direction or vision for a city or municipal region reflect the common good for all of its people. One potential pitfall in envisioning the future of a city is when a future vision or direction for a city is framed by narrow interests or a ‘used futures’ – images created somewhere else but super-imposed uncritically or serving special economic interests, a particular lobby group or other.[4]  We can see the ‘Smart City’ discourse as one such ‘used future’. It is fashionable and employed by some very large corporations to paint a picture of a high tech, automated, internet-of-everything city, however it has strong technocratic tendencies that exclude real inclusion in city governance and participation.

Democratizing the future means that the future is not just framed based on narrow commercial interest, a policy clique, lobby groups or other special interests, but rather that a city’s vision and purpose is driven through the multifaceted and dynamic knowledges and wisdom of its many citizens. Ultimately a city’s direction and vision, and the policies that stem from them, should ensure a mutuality of benefits that support the urban commons. The very process of foresight exploration and action should be seen within a commons governance framework. Critically, this democratization of foresight based exploration and response-ability can specifically focus on threats to and opportunities for the protection and extension of the urban commons. Framed in such a way, Anticipatory Governance is a key ally in supporting positive urban commoning outcomes.

Strategies For Anticipatory Governance

While there are many ways to establish an Anticipatory Governance process, here are some basic building blocks:

First, it is important that it is an ongoing process, not just a once-off exercise. The world is not going to stop changing, so formulating and developing a continuous process is key.

Next, a city government in partnership with citizens should establish well resourced systems and structures that allow for continuous citizen involvement, townhall style conversations, as well as crowdsourcing of futures-relevant knowledge. Task forces need to be created which promote and develop engagement approaches and strategies across various sectors, citizen groups, government, businesses and among other specialist groups. These task forces, based on specialist and embodied knowledges, can be data to knowledge to wisdom engines of futures-relevant knowledge.

Large scale citizen-city partnerships can utilize knowledge management systems that help analysts to organize data, from workshop data to big digital data, and across various input sources. This is ongoingly presented and used in live participatory workshops and other engagement modes to develop collective intelligence and deeper wisdom of futures relevance. Collaborative teams emerge from these sessions to carry out policy development, social innovations, projects and other actions, based on this clarified awareness of threats and opportunities. Citizens and other groups are not just providers of knowledge, but also potential sources of social innovation, policy ideation and other change factors.

Supported by government but co-run by citizens, Anticipatory Governance fits within the Partner State model as advocated by Bauwens,[5] in so far as dedicated public resources are required to establish and support a platform for citizen involvement, but citizens are critical to the energy needed, data requirements, creative responses and the governance of the process. As such an Anticipatory Governance system should not be solely controlled by a municipality, but rather exist within a commons management framework. While obviously it is not a standard “common resource pool” as articulated by Elinor Ostrom, it is nonetheless a shared group of elements that requires a participatory governance framework. These elements include:

  • The vision(s) for a city, the image of its future and associated ideas,
  • The processes undertaken to explore the future and develop creative responses,
  • The systems and structures (e.g. knowledge management systems) that allow sharing, data gathering and rich analysis,
  • The outputs of the process, knowledge, projects, social innovations, etc.

Examples

Policy Recommendations for Cities

  • Create a multi-year commitment toward implementing an anticipatory governance approach, not just a one off.
  • Pilot crowd sourcing and knowledge management platforms based on citizen / user experience along with functionality and data, and scale a working model across sectors.
  • Twine online data gathering with live intelligence building workshops that allow citizen foresight potential to develop and build.
  • Make citizens and government true partners in the management and development of the system.
  • Make sure that end goals for the system are made explicit and served: nimble future-informed policy making, ‘smarter’ citizens, robust future visions, social innovation, inter-organizational knowledge sharing etc.
  • Leverage the process to support citizen learning, deeper citizen connections and synergies, and critical social capital across all sectors, in particular the marginalized.

[1] Bezold, C. (1978). Anticipatory Democracy: People in the Politics of the Future. NY: Random House.

[2] https://www.academia.edu/3525646/Foresight_in_a_Network_Era_Peer-producing_Alternative_Futures

[3] Adage by Jim Dator

[4] Inayatullah, S. (2008). Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming. Foresight, 10(1).

[5] https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Partner_State

Mutant Futures Program

Quick Details

What: A personal-professional development program and process

Location: Melbourne CBD (with limited experimental online / remote intake)

Initial session times: Session 1, Wed 22nd Nov – 6:30-8:30 pm. Session 2, Wed 13th Dec – 6:30-8:30 pm. (further times to be arranged as a group)

Program duration: 12 months (approximately 10 once-a-month sessions) (2 hours in length), plus a weekend retreat

Cost: $200 for year and $100 for retreat

Expression of interest linkhttps://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KCGV6ZK

**WE HAVE FILLED ALL SPOTS AND ARE NO LONGER TAKING EOI FOR 2017-2018. HOWEVER, YOU ARE WELCOME TO PUT IN AN EOI FOR 2018-2019. 

Introduction

The Mutant Futures Program supports people in developing their hybrid and futures oriented professional practices. Jose Ramos conceived the program, after several years of his own soul searching and the writing of this essay “Mutant Futurists in the 21st Century“. Inviting four others (see testimonials below), a pilot program was run between 2016 and 2017, and was very valuable for all, so it is now being opened up as a program to be run for others.

The program is meant to help us unearth deeply purposeful and creative practices that can have unpredictable, surprising and of course positive impacts on the world and ourselves. It aims to help people to develop their ‘mutant futures’ thinking and practices through a variety of approaches. It is a self discovery process and a business discovery process that intends to support the creative development of the inner and outer alignment of our work.

 

Premise

We are moving into an era of trans-disciplinary and multi-modal practices that are not segmented specializations. Increasingly practitioners combine a number of talents, knowledge domains and fields to create hybrid approaches. This can be daunting, because people are playing in the space of the unknown, but is also deeply creative and central to the capacity for people to realize their true potential to contribute to the world and general wellbeing.

Many people undertake professional development processes, but have difficulty enacting personal change, because our inner narrative (what we tell ourselves about ourselves) is not aligned with what we are consciously trying to create in the world. Often, while we consciously strive for a particular future, at the level of our unconconscious we lack alignment. We may therefore not actually believe what we are saying, or there is a conflict or double bind, or there exists some other mental aspect that contradicts our outward expression. The process we take in this program works toward an alignment between the inner and outer dimensions of our practice, such that who we project ourselves as in the world (our personas) are deeply aligned and supported by our life narrative and our sense of purpose.

What happens

The program is an integration of “Ying” and “Yang” movements, both letting come (emergence) and making happen (pushing). Participants gather once per month (for 2 hours) over a year to relate and learn together. We discuss readings and ideas, and we talk about our aspirations, intentions and progress. We also give and get coaching from each other. We take a “no one left behind policy”. We understand that in the nexus of personal and professional development there is an ebb and flow, and life’s context and circumstances can create challenges. Through this we allow ourselves and each other to be at different stages of development, but aim to continue to support each other and hold each other to account.

The following is a rough guide to the process that we take:

  • We draw on the work of Joseph Campbell to begin to explore the role of myth and metaphor and their role in forming a dialog with the unconscious.
  • We do the “CLA of the Self” process developed by Sohail Inayatullah (CLA stands for Causal Layered Analysis) to explore core life narrative and create deep shifts.
  • We work on our practices to develop: clarity of purpose, self expression, service prototyping / experimentation and visibility.
  • We use the Futures Action Model to help us conceptualise potential enterprise models and the partnership ecosystems needed to support innovation.
  • We use FuturesLab as a processware fablab to help us test new services and products through an open experimentation ecosystem.

We draw on a variety of literature and ideas to help us in the inquiry and to build our practices.

  • On myth (the works of Joseph Campbell)
  • On inner selves (the works of Hal and Sidra Stone)
  • On narrative (the works of Sohail Inayatullah, Ivana Milojevic and John Hagel)
  • The 5ps (Key Person of Influence) method (Daniel Priestly)
  • Start With Why (Simon Sinek)
  • Man’s Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl)
  • The War of Art (Steven Pressfield)
  • The Artists Way (Julia Cameron)
  • many others

Dates, Times and Places

  • We meet once a month for a year in the Melbourne CBD area.
  • There are approximately 10 meetings, each about 2 hour long.
  • The program will begin October 2017 and run 12 month until October 2018.
  • We have one weekend retreat in the program, sometime in late January / early February, which is 2 days, in country Victoria (Elms Retreat).
  • While we were all Melbourne based in the last course, we are open to having a few remote (non-Melbourne based) participants in this one using web-based communications. However this stream would be experimental.

Who can join?

Anyone who wants to build a hybrid practice that brings in foresight / futures in some shape or form.

How much does it cost?

We have tried to keep the cost as low as possible. It is $200 for the year (not counting the retreat costs which is an additional $100), which goes toward program administration to to make everything go smooth.

How do I join?

Please fill out this Expression of Interest as soon as possible: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KCGV6ZK

**WE HAVE FILLED ALL SPOTS AND ARE NO LONGER TAKING EOI FOR 2017-2018. HOWEVER, YOU ARE WELCOME TO PUT IN AN EOI FOR 2018-2019. 

Testimonials

“I have always held a deep belief in the adage that a learning journey can be best judged by how much it challenges and shifts how we see the world. With this as my yardstick, the Mutant Futures program has been one of the most powerful learning journey’s I have experienced to date. Among the plethora of practical insights around building my foresight craft, was the surfacing of the often unconscious dimensions of self. This program is an intimate voyage of self discovery and deep reflection and is delivered in poetic and reflective grace that asks you to challenge your conventional framing of self to better understand how this this framing underpins (consciously or otherwise) what we do, and do not do (and why) in the context of better understanding and developing our foresight/futures ‘craft’.” Reanna Browne

“I was deeply grateful to be part of this program. The mutant futures program itself is an emergent journey enacted through our own personal reflective rediscovery of the ‘authentic self’. Harnessed through enriching source material and practices, by focussing the lens to understand the interior of ones self. The discovery is the catalyst that drives our craft and professional pathways into our own ambitions of the future. The journey allows us to understand the weight of the past by looking back at our experiences travelled, the push of the future in having the encouragement to acknowledge our own true potential and the pull of the future is explored through personal metaphors and narratives that guide us into the future that we want to create and participate. This developmental program assists us to unearth our true value of contribution, enabling professional emergence and development within a supportive collaborative environment.” Charmaine Sevil

“The Mutants Futures Program has been a “game changer” for me. It has been a unique, deep and powerful learning experience that has enabled greater clarity of purpose and internal alignment. Unearthing certain personal narratives and metaphors embedded deeply in the unconscious was incredibly challenging and confrontational at times. However, the genuinely safe, inclusive and collaborative learning space created by fellow participants encouraged me to embark on a deeply reflective journey that has led to me identifying and securing work that is meaningful to me.” Mahesh Kandasamy

“The Mutants program gave me an opportunity to develop the skills, theories and understandings I acquired during my time completing the Swinburne Masers in Strategic Foresight. Expertly and gently guided by Jose, we worked coherently, challenging my biases and exploring my own personal narrative, within a safe and supportive environment, to develop my pitch to more clearly communicate my unique proposition and focus my own mutant foresight practice.” Stephen Reimann 

“The Mutant futures program confirmed a number of intuitions for me. One, we are better off working together to support each others emerging practices. Two, there is a real link between inner narrative and metaphor and outer professional practice – doing pro dev without inner work misses much of what really supports us in bringing forth our future selves. Three, it is possible to experiment and bring the future into the present.” Jose Ramos 

 

Linking Foresight and Action

In 2015 I got the opportunity to write a chapter for the The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research, a pioneering effort that gathered together the spirit of transformative approaches to participatory action research into a remarkable compilation with dozens and dozens of chapters almost 900 pages long. The book brought together an amazing group of scholars and practitioners from all around the world. This past year the book was finally published and launched.

The significance of the handbook in my opinion is in linking and contextualizing action research within an explicitly global political project for social and ecological justice, indeed cognitive justice. For example, there are chapters on action research’s relationship with alternative futures of globalisation, as well as knowledge democracy.

The book points to a deepening of our understanding of the social and political context within which action research takes place, and its role in linking the potential of a transformational praxis with the broader aims of social transformation.

While I have written extensively on alternative futures of globalisation, and in fact my PhD dissertation was an action research study of alternative futures of globalisation, I instead decided to write a chapter titled Linking Foresight and Action: Toward a Futures Action Research, which is more focused on strategic foresight / futures studies as a field and its relationship to action learning and action research, and the principle of action in general.

Below is a section of the chapter that deals with the future as a principle of present action, and also gives a potted history of the field from the perspective of an action researcher.

For those interested in obtaining a copy of the paper, feel free to contact me via the website contact page and I would be happy to send a personal copy to you.

================================

The Future as a Principle of Present Action

Slaughter (1995) put forward the idea of ‘foresight’ as a human capacity and quality, in contradistinction to the widespread notion that the ‘future’ is somehow outside us. In sharp contrast to a future state independent of human consciousness, Slaughter located the future in human consciousness, in our human capacity to cognize consequence, change, difference, temporality. The future, he argued, is therefore a principle of present action (Slaughter 2004). The images we hold of our futures can and should inform wise action in the present.

This simple idea represents a radical departure from previous epistemologies of time, from a fixed and unitary notion of the future to one where ‘the future’ is a projection of consciousness and culture. This embodied and constructivist concept of the future points toward the need to build ethnographic and sociological understandings for how various communities cognize time differently, and how human consciousness and culture mediate decisions and action.

In a number of professional settings, foresight informs action in a variety of ways.

In the area of policy, governments at various scales are engaged in a variety of decisions, many which will have enduring effects over decades and may be difficult to undo. Policy foresight helps regions to understand long-term social and ecological changes and challenges, to develop adequate responses.

In the area of strategy, businesses require an understanding of how market, technology and policy shifts may create changes in their operating and transactional environments. Strategy foresight helps businesses discover opportunities, address the challenges of fast changing markets, and develop a social and ethical context for business decisions.

In the area of innovation and design, foresight can inspire design concepts, social and technical innovations that have a future-fit, rather than only a present-fit. Design and innovation provide the ‘seeds of change’ interventions that can, over many years, grow to become significant change factors, leverage for desirable long-term social change.

The broader and arguably highest role for foresight is to inform and inspire social transformation toward ethical goals (for example ecological stewardship and social justice). In this regard social foresight can play a major role in informing and inspiring social movements and community based social action. Citizens and people from many walks of life have the power to plant the seeds of change, create social innovations, alternatives and experiments that provide new pathways and strategies that can lead to alternative and desirable futures. Foresight can inspire a sense of social responsibility and impetus for social action, at both political and personal levels. In my own life, I have found that as I have cognized various social and ecological challenges, I am compelled to act differently in the present. This has been as simple as using a heater less, changing to low energy light bulbs and installing solar panels, to more entailed commitments like attending climate change and anti-war marches, organizing social alternative events, and even co-founding businesses. The link between foresight and action is at once social, political, organizational and personal, and uniquely different for each person.

Futures Studies’ Road to a Participatory-Action

Like any field, Futures Studies has undergone major shifts over its 50-year history. From my perspective as an action researcher, and building on the work of Inayatullah (1990) and social development perspectives (Ramos 2004a), I argue that the field has gone through five major stages: Predictive, Systemic, Critical, Participatory and Action-oriented. From the 1950s to the 1960s, the field was concerned with prediction, in particular macro-economic forecasting, where change was envisaged as linear (Bell 1997). From the 1970s to the 1980s, the field used various systems perspectives that incorporated more complexity and indeterminacy into its inquiry and scenarios and alternative futures emerged (Moll 2005). From the 1980s and 1990s, interpretive and critical perspectives emerged that incorporated post-modern, post-structural and critical theory influences, where change was seen related to discursive power (Slaughter 1999). From the 1990s to the present, participatory approaches have flourished. The most recent shift puts an emphasis on action-oriented inquiry, associated with design, enterprise creation, innovation and embodied and experiential processes (Ramos 2006).

To understand these shifts it is important to understand the epistemological assumptions that underpin these modalities. In the linear modality, forecasters believed that the future could actually be predicted. Without a relationship to subjectivity or inter- subjectivity, the future was ‘out-there’ and could be known like a ‘substance’ or thing. There were problems with prediction, however, as many were wrong (Schnaars 1989), and this perspective could not account for human agency or the ‘paradox of prediction’ – once having made a prediction, other people may decide to work toward an alternative future. It could also not account for complexity, that is, that a variety of variables, factors, and forces interact in complex and difficult to understand ways. Hence the systemic modality was born.

In the systemic modality, instead of attempting to predict a single future, systems analysts created complex models that examined the interactions between a number of variables. Trends and forecasts were still used, but instead of assuming a single future, the ideas and practices for creating scenarios emerged. A number of World Models, including Limits to Growth (Meadows 1972), took this perspective, providing a number of scenarios relying on the prominence of particular variables, and their interactions. A challenge to this arose when World Models and other systemically informed studies emerged that were inconsistent or which contradicted each other (Hughes 1985). Research institutes from different parts of the world produced radically different perspectives on the future. This is where the critical modality brings such contradictions into perspective.

In the critical mode, models or systems for future change have their basis in different cultures, perspectives, discourses and interests, as well depending on whether they were from a ‘developing’ or ‘developed’ world perspective. Variables seen as essential aspects of a system, from a critical view, were an expression of discourse and culture, rather than universal ‘truths’ (Inayatullah 1998, Slaughter 1999). This is seen in how gendered power dynamics are expressed in images of the future (Milojevic 1999), or when people are caught in someone else’s discourse on the future, and are in-effect holding a ‘used future’ (Inayatullah 2008). The critical mode questions default futures and develops alternative and authentic futures. The critical mode affirms the importance of questioning the role of perspective, deepened through engagement in participatory approaches.

Whereas critical futures posits that the future is different based on discourse, culture, and disposition, in the participatory mode or process, contrasting perspectives on the future will be present in the same room or group process. The exercise becomes much less abstract and far more dialogical. The challenge shifts to how people can have useful, enriching and intelligent conversations about the future, while still honoring (indeed leveraging) differing perspectives. The participatory mode uses workshop tools and methods that include previous approaches: identification of trends and emerging issues (predictive), scenario development (systems) and de-constructive approaches (critical). Participation forms the basis for generative conversations about our futures, and is a pathway toward transformative action.

An action modality is what emerges from embodied participation. When people come from systemically different backgrounds, the potential for conflict and miscommunication exists, but likewise a group based inter-systemic understanding can emerge, and this embodied and emergent ‘alliance’ is critical in developing the potential to create change. When participants can co-develop new narratives, authentic vision and intelligent strategies, people can feel a sense of natural ownership and commitment. Group based inquiry that leads to collective foresight with an understating of shared challenges and a common ground vision for change, can call forth commitment and action.

Each stage in the process relies on previous stages. The systems modality relies on statistically rigorous trends and data to construct scenarios. The critical modality relies on scenarios as objects of deconstruction. The participatory modality relies on all previous modes to be enacted in workshop environments. The action mode relies on participants to come together to create shared meaning and commitment.

=====================

 

Futures Action Model for Policy Wind Tunneling

The Futures Action Model is a useful framework to test policy assumptions against  knowledge about emerging futures. Social policies implicitly hold assumptions about that policy’s utility and effect for social good. As change becomes more complex, interconnected and abrupt, social policies also need to prove effective within a horizon of social changes.

Policies, however, are very often the legacy of the impersonal past, developed by a previous bureaucracy, department or government. Many of these policies may have been a perfect solution for the problems of their time, but in the present moment may be losing relevance, or may even be detrimental in a future context. This is why policies and the strategies that sit beside them need to be continuously tested against possible future  conditions.

The metaphor of wind tunneling is useful here. The technique of wind tunneling was developed to trial the aerodynamic qualities of cars and airplanes, by putting them in chambers that simulated high velocity winds. Instead of producing a car or an airplane with only an abstract hypothesis about its aerodynamic qualities, wind tunneling could provide empirical data that could help designers to make adjustments to the designs of their vehicles.

While the metaphor is not a perfect fit, and an artificial chamber that produces high velocity winds is far more empirical than a scenario produced through research and analysis, the metaphor still helps us to understand that there is an important relationship between the artefacts we use and the conditions within which they function. Social policy is a public instrument to enact change and regulate social functions in desirable ways.  and yet the conditions they operate in are always changing. The scenario is like the wind tunnel, it provides the context within which a social policy may seem to be working well, not working well, or evidencing other less understood behaviour.

The Futures Action Model can also be used to “wind tunnel” existing policies and policy assumptions against possible future states. Placing the policy as the core you can ask:

  • How well will the policy work in the emerging future, in light of particular trends and emerging issues, or in light of particular scenarios and images of the future?
  • What global responses exist to a particular scenario?  and how does one’s policy compare to how others are pioneering responses from around the world?
  • Does a particular scenario challenge our understanding of the ecosystem of stakeholders around a particular issue,  or the way in which those stakeholders interact?  how does our current policy’s  assumptions about stakeholders compare with what a hypothetical future says about stakeholders? Are we missing stakeholders? Do we need to revise our assumptions about stakeholders?

For example, we can use the relationship between the emerging futures and policy to drive insights. How does a current policy idea stand up to your knowledge of emerging futures? Is there a future fit or not? And, what policy ideas emerge from thinking about the future?

And we can use the relationship between global responses and policy to also drive insights. How does a current policy idea stand up to your knowledge of the pioneer projects and positive responses being conducted around the world? Are other people already using a similar policy, or not, and how is it playing out? And, what policy ideas emerge from learning what others are doing around the world?

Finally, we can use the relationship between stakeholders / community and policy to drive insights. How does a current policy idea stand up to how your community of stakeholders will evolve given particular future assumptions? Does it serve their  emerging needs in the future, or will you need to empathize more deeply with them? And, what policy ideas emerge from empathizing and learning about the stakeholder ecosystem?

Example:

One example that we can use  are the projections for automation and robotics.  many many people are arguing that within 20 to 30 years time,  many of the jobs that we take for granted today will have been replaced by automation and robotics.  we can use this to drive a particularly dramatic image of the future, let’s say that by 2045, half of the jobs that  people do today have been replaced by automation and robotics. Here are some questions you might ask if tunnelling policies in the context of this particular assumption about a future state.

Emerging futures

  • Does the particular scenario or future assumption we have chosen seem outrageous or ridiculous enough to be useful, or do we need to look for even more divergent change, and play more boldly with assumptions about the future?
  • Is there consensus or divergence in respect to this particular scenario or future assumption?
  • For example is the image or future assumption that we have put forward about automation and robotics conservative?

Global Responses

  • How are people in any part of the world responding to this particular scenario or assumption,  and how does this compare with the existing social policies that you hold.
  • What might be some of the best practice responses by governments from around the world,  and how does this compare with the social policies that you hold?
  • For example there are many regional and national governments that are beginning to experiment with universal basic income, considered to be one of the possible responses to the scenario.

Community of Initiative / Stakeholders

  • Within the scenario logic, how  are the assumptions of stakeholders transformed?
  • For example at the moment “normal” unemployment is supposed to sit between 3% and 6% of the working population. For particular social policy that is supposed to alleviate unemployment, this 3%-6% group is considered a primary stakeholder.  but what if this stakeholder group becomes 30% to 40% of the population?  What if the very nature of this group changes?
  • How do the assumptions embedded within the current policy compared to revised assumptions within the scenario logic?

Policy

  • Are the current policies with respect to employment, training and education adequate for transitioning to such a scenario?
  • What aspects of current social policy are effectively working, and have seeming viability within this scenario? What aspects of current policy do not seem to address the needs of this future scenario?
  • What are the particular assumptions embedded in current social policy that need to be reviewed given our emerging understanding of social changes?

Our Team

Partners

Gareth Priday

Gareth is a futurist with Action Foresight. He holds director roles with the Australian Living Labs Innovation Network and Ethical Fields. His first career was with household name investment banks in the UK and Australia. He has recently worked with international political forums, state governments, cooperative research councils, and business across a range of foresight, research, codesign education and strategy initiatives. He has peer reviewed published works across futures, codesign and living labs. He holds a Master of Strategic Foresight from Swinburne University.

José Ramos

Jose has over two decades in the fields of foresight, futures studies, action research and critical globalisation studies, working with dozens of governments, agencies and communities in over 20 countries. He is co-editor of the peer reviewed Journal of Futures Studies, and has published over 70 articles, chapters and papers in a number of journals and magazines. He holds a doctorate from Queensland University of Technology, winning their award for outstanding doctoral thesis. He recently co-founded the Participatory Futures Global Swarm, to amplify the use of participatory futures around the world to intervene in and to influence the public imagination of the future.

Collaborators

Reanna Browne

Reanna holds MA Strategic Foresight (Swinburne) – Finalist Swinburne Postgraduate Medal • Grad Cert Futures (University of the Sunshine Coast) – Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence. Reanna is an academically trained and practicing futurist with experience and education spanning business and workforce futures + strategy and organisational design and development. Reanna has been a consulting and ‘inhouse’ futurist for the last six years, working with a global client based across public, private and start-up sectors. In addition to cofounding her own start-up, Reanna has also worked as an executive in a global start-up, and in a range of senior public sector roles across both state and federal settings.

Dr. John Sweeney

John is a futurist, designer, and author, with extensive experience utilizing participatory / experiential methods with a particular focus on gaming. My work has been focused on applying futures and foresight in the Asia-Pacific, Central Asian, & Eastern European regions. I’ve organized and facilitated strategic planning and foresight projects for a range of clients, including numerous humanitarian and development agencies, government innovation units, and Fortune 500 companies, and delivered keynote presentations, seminars, and training courses in over 45 countries on five continents. I currently serves as Co-Editor in Chief of the World Futures Review with Dr. Nur Anisah Abdullah. I have a PhD in Political Science from the University of Hawaii, Manoa.

Dr. Jayarethanam Pillai

Jayarethanam (Jaya) is currently a Lead Data Scientist and Economist. In addition, he is the Chief Innovation and Data Science Officer in his start-up consultancy and offers regional expertise in providing analytical and data science work for companies and government agencies alike, particularly specializing in developing strategic decisions using economics, data analytics, and AI. Jaya has done over 20 analytics-related projects and widely published papers in economic policy, digital transformation, and entrepreneurship while working and living in 11 international cities/states. He has expert-level advisory experience in the application of data analytics in embedded analytical operation systems specifically in panel data and supervised and unsupervised machine learning. He has a keen interest in the application of AI in digital transformation. His thirst for developing machine learning and econometric modeling to identify and offer solutions for decision-making puts him among some of the key regional intellectuals in the field of digital transformation. As a testimony, he attracted private sector funding, in setting up the ‘Futuristic Intelligence Institute (FII)’ at the American University of Central Asia, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, with the aim of pushing the research, teaching, and application of Data Science and AI in the region. Jaya obtained his Ph.D. in Public Policy and Economics, a Master of Economics, and a Graduate Certificate in Data Science, in the course of doing his analytical gigs.

Mel Rumble

Mel a Sydney-based futures designer, futures researcher and UX/digital producer with a background in futures, design, strategic foresight, environmental education and science communication.

She’s an Associate at Little Owl, an ethical tech consultancy, design studio and miniature startup incubator, and the Founder of Reframeable.

She’s also a Casual Academic/Tutor/Mentor in the Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation (FTDI) at UTS, where I’ve recently taught into several foresight and futures-focused subjects including Envisioning Futures, Making Futures and Past, Present, Future of Innovation. I’m part of a team within FTDI that recently ran several of these subjects online to large numbers of students (most recently, to 250 students) after a Covid-induced rapid pivot to remote learning.

She’s recently embarked on an exciting collaboration with Claire Marshall of IfLabs, working on the next stage of the Museum of Futures. This has included the co-design and co-delivery of Futures Worth Wanting, a workshop in responsible innovation and futures prototyping for the 2020 Sydney Festival. We have also recently received a grant from the City of Sydney for a new Museum of Futures exhibition called Museum of Futures: Pandemic Pivots, which will bring artists and communities together to collaboratively co-design the futures they want amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.

She graduated with a Master of Strategic Foresight at Swinburne University of Technology in December 2018, and was awarded the prize for the highest achieving graduate in the Master of Strategic Foresight granted in 2018.

Her futures practice operates at the intersection of human-centred design, foresight/futures and systems thinking to help organisations and communities shape the futures they want, by design. She’s passionate about using foresight/futuring, design, collaborative and systems methods to co-design environments that catalyse the emergence of regenerative, flourishing, just and inclusive futures.

 

Anticipatory Experimentation / Bridge Method

The Anticipatory Experimentation / Bridge Method brings your preferred future into the present through scaled experiments that can have a big impact.

Challenge your existing view of the future and use that to create a powerful vision and narrative that forms a call to action. Use our bespoke ‘Futures Action Model’ to inspire ideas and prototypes. The best ideas are developed into models that can be actioned in the real world. Learn how to bring the preferred future into the present by conducting real world experiments. Use this to guide investment decisions. Upscale the most promising experiments based on evidence of what can create your vision.

 

Anticipatory Experimentation / Bridge Method 

AF core method - bridge labels

The method entails five stages:

  1. Challenging the used future
  2. Developing a transformational futures narrative
  3. Creating a number of prototype ideas from the transformational narrative
  4. Choosing which prototype ideas to experiment with and running real-world experiments
  5. Upscaling and investing in the experiments with the best promise

Our services include three workshop and R&D component for the AIM/Bridge

Why use the Anticipatory Experimentation / Bridge Method ? 

The AEM/Bridge Method is powerful because it is an effective bridge between your transformational future vision and real-world experiments that bring that future into being. It combines a state of the art visioning approach with a proven conceptual prototyping method that can bridge future vision with specific and implementable ideas, which culminates in experiments that can have great impacts.

The method focuses on the best way to bring a transformational future into the present, running experiments that have maximum alignment with the enactment of the transformational future. Experiments are a powerful vehicle for enacting new futures because they are “small pieces” of the preferred future brought into the present. They are time and resource savers because, rather than commit a whole organization or community to a new path (which is both risky and potentially costly), experiments are cost effective ways of testing a new direction. If some experiments show promise they can be scaled and invested in, accelerating organisational momentum toward enacting the vision. If experiments don’t work, the investment was limited and the risk was measured, people still learn a great deal and nonetheless develop confidence in the experimentation process.

How does the Anticipatory Experimentation / Bridge Method work? 

AF core method - bridge methods

  1. First, we challenge the used future, which entails exploring the assumptions and images we have about the future, as well as learning about the emerging issues, trends and weak signals that are transforming our social horizons.
  2. Secondly, we help you develop an integrated vision and support you in creating a transformational futures narrative. The transformational futures narrative articulates the movement from your past to present to preferred future. It is an open ended narrative that requires the world to participate in its fulfilment, a call to action for others to work with you to create this future.
  3. Thirdly, we use the Futures Action Model to bridge your transformational futures narrative with prototyping. This includes an R&D process that begins with scanning the landscape of global pioneer projects, and then develops prototypes and models connected to your stakeholder ecosystem. This is done through a combination of R&D and gaming (the Futures Action Game).
  4. Fourthly, we set up an experiment using the FuturesLab approach of action learning – anticipate, design, connect and evolve. The experiment is that small piece of the future you are bringing into the present. We make sure learning happens that builds in systemic capacity for renewed experiments.
  5. Finally, experiments can be evaluated to see which ones show the most promise and are best aligned to enact your vision. These can then be upscaled and invested in accelerate the movement toward enacting the vision.

What are the main benefits of the Anticipatory Experimentation / Bridge Method ?

AF core method - bridge colors

  • How you conceive your future is genuine and powerful. It is not based on a “used future” that does not inspire, but is  connected to you or your organizations deep sense of purpose and creativity, giving you energy and inspiration. Your future is also informed by an analysis of emerging issues, strengthening its fit within an emerging horizon of change.
  • The ideas, strategies and prototypes you come up with for change are rigorous, aligned to your vision, grounded in an understanding of a changing world, tested against a global landscape of innovation, connected to the needs and potentials of your stakeholders, and concrete enough to implement.
  • Experiments show how to solve emerging challenges early. This can save valuable energy (time and money) that is spent responding to a problem once it is already a big one. Experiments also “prefigure” change. Especially when coupled to futures thinking, experiments can be transformative, providing a breakthrough into a new realm of achievement / performance.
  • Empowerment – people learn how to experiment, thus gaining capability, skills and confidence. Ultimately it is mastery of the process and a new culture that transforms a situation. No problem is too big to solve, because the capability and confidence in developing solutions has become so strong.
  • Social and technical innovation – from experiments and the deep learning they engender, new forms are born that are aligned to your preferred future vision, and which can be scaled to enact that future faster.