13 Scenario Planning

Once you have completed a thorough and in-depth analysis of the community situation, you need to go through the steps of scenario planning in order to identify the optimal community change strategy to use and more importantly to make an explicit choice about moving forward. This step may not take a lot of time to complete but is still a very intentional part of the process of community change work.

I was also recently reminded, by two amazing changemakers from the UK at Wellbeing Enterprises, Mark Swift and James Smith, about the power of dreaming at this stage.  When we allow ourselves to collectively dream, we  envision what is optimal and best for everyone without constraint, setting a goal of where we need to be.   If we don’t allow dreaming then we will always be limited by our lack of imagination and logistical constraints, and we won’t get to our desired future; we will get to our likely or probable future.

Since this step is explicitly about intention and buy-in, it is critical that this be done with a core team of dedicated collaborators rather than in isolation.

Scenario planning involves:

1. Identifying a few scenarios on the future of the community situation based on your analysis
2. Reviewing the scenarios with your stakeholders
3. Discussing the benefits of changing and the costs of maintaining the status quo
4. Making an explicit decision between two potential scenarios; either towards change (preferred future) or the status quo (probable future)

Describing Two Potential Scenarios

The two potential scenarios are about the probable future and the preferable or ideal future and incorporate elements from both design thinking and systems thinking^[1][2].

Probable Future

The probable future is the future that would exist if the current conditions and trends in the community continue along the same trajectory they are now. So, to describe the probable future you need to answer these questions:

• What is this condition/issue/problem likely to become if we do nothing new (business as usual)?
• What is LIKELY to happen?

Preferable Future

The preferable future is the future in which the current conditions and trends in the community shift to an improved and ideal level. This is where you need to dream.  So, to describe the preferred future you need to answer these questions:

• What is the desired future with this condition/issue/problem?
• What do we WANT to happen?
• What is the ideal?

Once you have described your probable and preferable future, you and your stakeholders need to answer the following questions:

• What are the costs of not changing? Are there financial, political, social, or other costs?
• What are the benefits of changing?
• What are the circumstances like for people in the ideal future?
  • What might they be doing, saying, and feeling?
  • How might this ideal future impact other parts of the community?
  • How might you and your work also be different?

The choices being made may seem obvious, but this is a very intentional and important step in community change work. It is critical that the collaborators make a deliberate decision to improve the conditions to a preferred future rather than allow conditions to remain the same. It is a way to establish deeper buy-in to the community change process.