A Six-Step Forecasting Methodology
The six steps in this forecasting methodology require teams to alternate between broadening (that is, “flaring”) and narrowing (that is, “focusing”) their thinking.
The dynamic of flare and focus is woven through this forecasting methodology. The six steps require teams to alternate between flaring and focusing, harnessing the dominant qualities of the right brain and the left brain. With each step, you are able to understand the likely future of the topic you’re examining more clearly as you define a trend, determine the best action to take, and create and test your strategy. When you both flare and focus, you are able to overcome the duality dilemma.
Here’s how to use these complementary ways of thinking:
1. First, flare at the fringe. Keep an open mind as you cast a wide enough net and gather information without judgment. This involves creating a map of what you observe at the fringe. This map should show nodes — or key concepts, companies, places, and people — and the relationships between them. Think of it as rounding up the “unusual suspects.” You’re brainstorming, making a fringe map, forcing yourself to think outside the box and consider radically different points of view.
2. Focus to spot patterns. You must narrow your research from the fringe and uncover the patterns hidden in your sketch to spot possible trends. To categorize what we have observed, we use a framework called CIPHER, which is an acronym that stands for
contradictions,
inflections,
practices,
hacks,
extremes, and
rarities. Look for surprising contradictions; inflection points that signal an acceleration of some change in progress; new practices that upset established norms (for example, when people altered the long-established norm of watching television programming only on TVs); hacks and adjustments that users are making to a product or technology to make it work better for them; extremes that push boundaries to break new ground; and rarities.
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3. Flare to ask the right questions. Determine whether a pattern really is a trend or merely a trendy flash in the pan. You will be tempted to stop looking once you’ve spotted a pattern; most forecasters never force themselves to poke holes into every single assumption and assertion they make. But you will soon learn that creating counterarguments is an essential part of the forecasting process.
4. Focus to calculate timing. Interpret the trend, and ensure that the timing is right. This isn’t just about finding the typical S-curve that managers rely on to describe adoptions of a new innovation or technology; such an S-curve can show a new technology’s adoption, but it does not offer a full picture of how external effects (such as a change in government leadership or a natural disaster) could affect its development. As technology trends move along their trajectories, two forces are in play — internal developments within tech companies, and external developments within the government, adjacent businesses, and the like — and both must be considered.
5. Flare to create scenarios and strategies. First, build scenarios to create probable, plausible, and possible futures; then create strategies to accompany them. Probable scenarios represent the most likely outcomes if there are no unexpected major changes in circumstances, while plausible scenarios allow for many facets of daily life — some that we might not be able to imagine now — to change dramatically. Meanwhile, possible scenarios assume that nothing is set in stone — and that life as we know it could look radically different than it does today.
This step requires thinking about both the timeline of a technology’s development and your emotional reactions to all the possible outcomes. What necessary strategies and ways of thinking will govern how your organization will respond to the trend? Score each scenario with an estimated likelihood of occurrence and, on the basis of your analysis, create a corresponding strategy for action. A score of less than 40% suggests either you haven’t analyzed enough data or it is too early in the timeline to act; a score of more than 70% indicates that you’ve likely waited too long and should respond quickly.
6. Focus to test your plans. But what if the action you choose to take in response to a trend is the wrong one? In this final step, you must try to test whether the strategy you create to address a trend will deliver the desired outcome, and that requires asking difficult questions about both the present and the future. These questions should confirm that (1) your organization has confidence in the strategy and will support it; (2) the strategy offers your customers a unique value proposition; (3) you can track the developing trend and measure your outcomes; (4) the strategy communicates a sense of urgency to your staff and to your intended audience; (5) you have the resources needed to recalibrate the strategy if and when needed; and (6) the strategy is robust enough to easily accommodate change.
Duality in Action
Any organization intent on surviving and thriving into the future must practice both flaring and focusing in whatever methodology it uses to spot trends, so it is of paramount importance that every team charged with watching and acting on trends include both creative and logical types. Organizations that learn how to balance each hemisphere of the human brain are uniquely positioned to forecast trends and develop strategies that work.
And as you analyze emerging trends, remember: There are never any completely new technologies invented out of whole cloth. Our technology trends, their adoption for use in business, and the cultural, political, educational, and economic shifts that happen concurrently are all interwoven. Our tapestry of invention is part of a continuum over time. The tools may change — from hands, to weavers, to industrial machines, to algorithms and robots, to self-generating synthetic organics — but the previous corpus of research always becomes the basis for fresh thinking at the fringe.
The future is something we are creating now, in the present tense. You have the ability not only to forecast what’s to come but also to help create your own preferred future. Don’t wait.
REFERENCES (4)
1. J. Voros, “A Primer on Futures Studies, Foresight, and the Use of Scenarios,” Foresight Bulletin, no. 6 (December 2001).
2. S. Silcoff, J. McNish, and S. Ladurantaye, “Inside the Fall of BlackBerry: How the Smartphone Inventor Failed to Adapt,” Globe and Mail, Sept. 27, 2013.
3. See, for example, the d.school’s necktie model of flare and focus: T. Winograd, “Design Process Diagrams,” n.d., http://hci.stanford.edu.
4. For more on these six categories, see A. Webb, “The Tech Trends You Need to Know for 2016,” Dec. 8, 2015, www.linkedin.com.
