Environmental Scanning: what it is and how to do it

Maree Conway

2009

Environmental Scanning…what it is and how to do it

• Framework– Current Planning Approaches– Strategic Thinking from a Futures Perspective

• Environmental Scanning

• Challenges You Might Face

Overview

Strategy = making decisions in an uncertain context

Making strategic decisions in an uncertain context?

• Focus

• Be aware of worldviews

• Involve many

• Scan, analyse, interpretScan, analyse, interpret

• Think and imagine

• Ensure relevance and plausibility

• Test, question, challenge

• Decide, implement and monitor

Interior Exterior

Collective

Individual

Staff and stakeholder views

Organisational Culture

Observed Behaviour

The collective external world

Intentional “I” Behavioural “It”

Cultural “We”Social “Its”

A holistic approach

Ken Wilber

The Broad Process

Scanning helps to understand the context of your preferred future – where you want to go.

Current Planning Approaches

• Develop a single ‘default scenario’ – a linear extrapolation of today.

Single outcome

• Often lack the flexibility to deal with unexpected changes in the external environment.

• Usually do not include any processes for systematically exploring possible futures for your organisation.

• Tend to rely heavily on quantitative data, suggesting a single outcome, and dismiss validity of qualitative data.

• Miss potential innovation and strategic options because they don’t challenge organisational assumptions and ideologies.

And, usually don’t include any systematic processes for listening to the views of staff, before a plan is written.

• While the need for planning has never been greater, the relevance of most of today’s planning systems and tools is increasingly marginal (Fuller, 2003).

Future

• It may well be that the typical strategic planning exercise now conducted on a regular and formal basis and infused with quantitative data misses the essence of the concept of strategy and what is involved in thinking strategically (Sidorowicz, 2000).

Data

• A major assumption of the strategic planning literature … is that all of these terms [strategy, planning] necessarily go together. [That is] Strategy formation is a planning process, designed or supported by planners, to plan in order to produce plans” (Mintzberg, 1994).

Clarity

Strategic Thinking from a Futures Perspective

Strategic ThinkingGenerating Options

What might happen?

Strategic Decision Making

Making choicesWhat will we do?

Strategic PlanningTaking Action

How will we do it?

Options

Decisions

Actions

Strategic ThinkingGenerating Options

What might happen?

Strategic Decision Making

Making choicesWhat will we do?

Strategic PlanningTaking Action

How will we do it?

Options

Decisions

Actions

Futures Approaches and Methods

Conventional Business Thinking Futures Thinking

Immediate term Depth of vision

Own business focus Cross-disciplinary

Attention to detail Broad vision

Techno-economic trends focus Trends and emerging issues

Problem approach Systems approach

Less attention to connections Interactions and cross-impact

Continuity assumption Wild cards and discontinuities

Bottom line focus Strategic focus

Undiscussables Speak the unspeakable

Short term focus Long term orientation

A single future Alternative futures

Mainstream thinking Mind changers

Past and present dominate decision making Future dominates decision making

• Strategic thinking is identifying, thinking about and understanding possible and plausible future operating environments for your organisation…

…so you can use that knowledge to expand your thinking about your potential options,

…to position your organisation effectively in the external environment,

• …in order to make better informed decisions about action to take today.

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

We start here…

• Long term

• Uncertain

• Divergent

• Incomplete

• Beyond linear

• Disrupting alignment

We end up here.

• Short term

• Logical

• Convergent

• Pragmatic

• Deductive

• Creating Alignment

Environmental Scanning

ES is the art of systematically exploring and interpreting the external environment to better understand the nature of trends and drivers of change and their likely future impact on your organisation.

Competitor Intelligenceunderstanding the nature of our competitors and their likely responses to change

Competitive Intelligenceunderstanding how our competitors interact with the business and market environment in which they operate

Business Intelligenceunderstanding the present and future environments with a focus on future competitive environments

Environmental Scanningdeveloping a broad understanding of the external environment

Social Intelligenceunderstanding how a country uses its intelligence (knowledge industry and information networks) to meet its developmental challenges

Future Viewbuilding a long-term foresight view about the future of the country and the planet

Long-term

TIMEHORIZON

Short-term

Narrow SCOPE OF INFORMATION GATHERING Broad

Adapted from Choo, Information Management for the Intelligent Organization, 1998

Where environmental scanning fits…

Types of Futures

Time

Today

Possible

Plausible

Probable

Preferable

Scenario

“Wildcard”

Futures Cone developed by Clem Bezold

Where to Focus ES

Time

Today

Plausible

Probable

(Trends)

(Deep Drivers)

• How robust do we want our planning inputs to be?

• Bigger – how wide are we looking?

• Deeper – are seriously are we questioning?

• Longer – how far ahead are we looking?

Why do it this way?

• Big – do we understand how we connect and interact with other organisations and the external environment?

• Deep – how deeply are we questioning our ways of operating?

• Do we operate from our interpretation of the past, or our anticipation of the future?

• Are our assumptions today valid into the future?

• Long – how far into the future are we looking? Do we understand the shape of alternative futures for our organisation?

Whatever takes you away from conventional thinking…

Trends

Emerging Issues

The weird and unimaginable

• Beyond the short-term

• Beyond busy

• “We want to be proactive…”

• But how can you be proactive if you have little idea about what’s coming?

Why do it this way?

• Unless you scan, you WILL always be reacting/in crisis management/putting out bushfires.

• The aim of scanning work is to provide robust information (trends and emerging issues) to enable you to build a long term context for your strategic planning today.

Aim of ES

Doing ES: Focus

• But, lots of information out there, so how to focus effort?

Focusing your Scanning

• You can just scan (undirected), but a poor use of resources in a strategy project.

• An anchor or framing question directs and focuses scanning.

The anchor

• What is the key strategic issue?– This is the framing question.

• What do we need to know about the issue?– These are the factors that will influence the decision.

• What are trends and drivers of change affecting these factors?– This becomes the focus for environmental scanning:

• education specific, and• broad, global forces.

The anchor

The Scanning Process

Adapted from K. van der Heijden

Education Environment

Social Environment

Suppliers

Clients

Competitors

EducationalOrganisation

Driving Forces

Driving Forces

Factors / Trends Issues / ForcesSocial

Technological

Economic

Ecological

Political

…

Students

Customers

Members of Wider Society

The External Environment

OrganisationOrganisation

Industry

Learning

EducationalGaming

Funding

Engagement

Online

Sustainability

VocationalImperative



Global

Industry

Technology

Lifestyle

Values

Politics

Economy

Environment

Demographics &generational change

Learning

EducationalGaming

Funding

Engagement

Online

Sustainability



Globalisation


Global

Industry

Technology

Lifestyle

Values

Politics

Economy

Environment

Demographics &generational change

Learning

Educational Gaming

Funding

Engagement

Online

Sustainability



GlobalisationWildcard

Wildcard

Wildcard

Wildcard

Event

Trend(grouping of events)

Driver(moves trends in certain directions,

broad in scope and long term in nature)

Event




When you start scanning, you will find lots of events

Event




Gradually, you will be able to group similar ‘hits’ into broader categories – trends.

But it might still feel like this – a bit of a maze to try and work your way through…

Event




And consider: What is the counter trend? What is the wildcard?

What we are really interested in exploring is what is driving these trends.

And this is where the connections between the trends will surface and it will make sense.

Trends And Emerging Issues

Emerging Issues

Trends

Mainstream

Time

Number of cases; degree of public awareness

Few cases, local focus

Global, multiple dispersed cases, trends and megatrends

Adapted from the work of Graham Molitor and Wendy Schultz, and Everett Rogers

InnovatorsEarly adopters

Late Adopters

Late Majority

Laggards

Today

Time from emerging issue to mainstream varies between 18-36 years


Emerging Issues

Trends

Mainstream

Time


Scientists, artists, radicals, mystics

Newspapers, magazines, websites, journals, blogs

Government Institutions





Late Adopters

Late Majority

Laggards

Today



Emerging Issues

Trends

Mainstream

Time



Newspapers, magazines, websites, journals, blogs






Late Adopters

Late Majority

Laggards

Today


Most scanning takes place here


Emerging Issues

Trends

Mainstream

Time



Newspapers, magazines, websites, journals,blogs






Late Adopters

Late Majority

Laggards

Today


But we need to look on the fringe as well

Today FutureTIME

UNCERTAINTY

Linear Future

Low

High

The linear future is the one we believe to be true, usually based on untested assumptions

Usual Planning Timeframe(3-5 years)

Trend

Today FutureTIME

UNCERTAINTY

Linear Future

Low

High

Possible Futures


Trend

Today FutureTIME

UNCERTAINTY

Linear Future

Low

High

Possible Futures


Trend

But…don’t forget the wildcard…

• Trends don’t tell you anything – someone has to interpret the trend for it to be meaningful.

• Otherwise you are engaged in trend spotting as opposed to trend analysis.

Trends

• Extrapolations of the past and present, not future facts

• Uncertain future trajectories

• What assumptions underpin your thinking about outcomes?

Trends

Don’t get lost in the data smog!

• Trends are approaching mainstream – nothing new.

• Emerging Issues is about what’s at the horizon, at the periphery.

• Realm of the weird and the whacky, so difficult to present with credibility.

Emerging Issues Analysis

• Starts with a shift in values/perspectives – need to search at the fringes

• Emergence – people start to talk about it, but a minority – easier to influence now

• Champion – look for the thought leaders and rebels

• Defining event – brings the issue to public attention – morphs into a trend/harder to shape and influence


• Because emerging issues are weak, obscure, crazy, and fragile, good practical people usually ignore or ridicule them. Since these “useful” ideas are not part of their commonsense, people conclude they are nonsense.

• And this fact led me to formulate Dator’s Second Law of the Future. Namely, “Any useful idea about the future should appear to be ridiculous”.


Jim Dator, US Futurist

• Particularly useful for challenging long held assumptions about how things will be.

• Good for ‘what if’ questions.

Emerging Issues

Where to Look

• If you’re looking for new ideas that don’t yet exist, don’t talk to normal people because they’re just consuming what is available today – find the weirdos and see what they are doing, what they’re making on their own, and say gee – is there something I can mainstream from this?

Tom Kelly

Founder, Ideo

• Newspapers, websites, blogs, wikis, podcasts, videos, news sites, newsletter, magazines, books, book reviews, presentations, reports, surveys, interviews, seminars, chat rooms, trend observers, advertisers, philosophers sociologists, management gurus, consultants, researchers, experts, universities.

Where to look…

• Trendwatching• Future Scanner• Brain Reserve• Shaping Tomorrow• Now and Next• The Tomorrow Project• SRIC-BI• Arlington Institute (wildcards)

Some Scanning Sites

• Identify opinion leaders, the voice in the wilderness on the fringe:– Expert– Professional– Pundit– Amateur– Fringe

Looking for…

Shaping Tomorrow 2008

• Don’t dismiss the outliers…

• New

• First

• Idea

• Change

• Surprise

• Opportunity

• Threat

Looking for…

Shaping Tomorrow 2008

• Ideally, a scan hit identifies an emerging issue that is objectively new even to experts, confirms or is confirmed by additional scan hits, and that has been identified in time for social dialogue, impact assessment, and policy formation.

Wendy Schultz, Infinite Futures 2004

Looking for…

Some Examples

The impact of global trends...

THE GLOBAL BRAIN

A truly global explosion of talent

...the rise of pervasive computing and increasing connectedness

The potential impact of the metaverse… where virtual and physical come together

• Quantum computers will arrive by 2021.• Biometric security by 2010.• Challenge of protecting privacy increasing.• Virtual immortality is within reach.• Power to make things invisible may be at hand.• Artificial intelligence surpassing human intelligence.• Virtual education mainstream by 2015.• Human knowledge capability will continue to double every year.• Technology will lead to educated illiterates.• But…only 30% of world’s population will have access to IT

services by 2016.

World Future Society says…

...student choice and time, place and pace of learning

ONLINE OXYGEN

Online access for the masses

ONLINE OXYGEN

Training 10 million teachers

Photo: http://www.cyberpunkreview.com

Circa 1960

Filtering the right information from the exploding knowledge base will become critical

Changing demographics affecting rich and poor, east and west differently...

Understanding generational differences...

Environmental shifts...

Association for the Study of Peak Oil (www.peakoil.org): note that the US, Russian and European oil supplies have 'peaked' already years ago. After 2008, the global crisis kicks in.

The way we do business is changing.

Ethics and underpinning values are at risk...

...while the power of community grows

REALLY REAL

Democratisation of protests and e-activism

SNACK CULTURE

Deconstructing products - smaller, faster, cheaper

When is a hit useful?

• How will I separate signals of real change from the noise?

When is a ‘hit’ useful?

• Explore what is happening today.

• What are other people saying about its evolution over time?

• What impact might it have on your industry today and in the future?

• What might be the implications for your organisation?

When is a hit useful?

• Use the ‘three times on the radar’ test

• Are there lots of high quality links about it?

• Test the hit for relevance with your scanning team.

• Ask someone outside your immediate work area.


• Does the hit aim to identify and assess possible future threats and opportunities, including radical alternatives?

• Does the hit explore trends and their potential impacts?

• Does the hit challenge existing assumptions underpinning current polices and practice?


Shaping Tomorrow

• Ultimately, you need to trust your intuition – your expertise, knowledge and insight is your best gauge.

• But, remember your blind spots!

When is a scanning hit useful?

Classifying Hits

Social

Technological

Economic

Environmental

Political

How to Classify Hits?

STEEP or add in Values to make it VERY STEEP*

*Marcus Barber, Looking Up, Feeling Good

Recording and Sharing Hits

• Title

• Summary

• Source and date published

• Initial assessment of implications

• Tag/STEEP

• See Scanning Hit Record

What to Record

• For example (taken from SCAN, a publication by SRI Business Intelligence):

• 2009-01-03 Streaming Video and Security (Information

Week Daily 26 November 2001), describes the shift of Packet Video (a developer of video streaming technology) from consumer to security applications. The company’s technology could provide live feeds from the cockpits of hijacked planes.

http://www.sric-bi.com/

Characteristics of a good scanner…

Open mind…

Curious…

Systems thinker…

Welcomes diversity…

Thinks outside the box…

Thinks outrageously at times…

Challenge my assumption…

Aware of own worldview

• What might seem real to you probably won’t seem as real to the next person.

• How you filter information to create meaning is critical to understand.

Worldview

• Need to challenge your filters so that you don’t miss anything that might be important.

• Understand your filters and those for whom you are doing the scanning.

Worldview

• What are the major driving forces?

• What big surprises are on the horizon?

• What are possible discontinuities (wildcards)?

As you scan…

• If you think …‘that’s rubbish’, stop.

• First, ask why do I think it’s rubbish?

• Second, take another look.

• Third, ask what would enable you to accept it as possible? Scan to see if that is happening.

As you scan…

As you scan…

If you see it three or more times in your scanning, your first reaction was probably wrong!

If you don’t see it again, you were probably right!

Challenges You Might Face

Challenges: Info Overload

Challenges: Stretching Your Thinking

Challenges: Finding the Time

Individual Scanning

Unconscious

Implicit

solitary

Environmental Scanning

Conscious

Explicit

Collective

We do scanning to avoid having a perspective like this…

Have fun!