Exploring e-government futures through the ...

Technological Forecasting & Social Change 71 (2004) 217 – 238

Exploring e-government futures through the application of scenario planning$ George Cairns*, George Wright, Ron Bradfield, Kees van der Heijden, George Burt Centre for Scenario Planning and Future Studies, University of Strathclyde Graduate School of Business, 199 Cathedral Street, Glasgow G4 0QY, UK Received 13 November 2001; received in revised form 1 August 2002; accepted 20 October 2002

Abstract In this paper, we examine the impact of information and communications technologies (ICT) on government departments/agencies and the contribution of external agents to change and development programs. We present empirical evidence of externally facilitated change to mindsets and patterns of behavior within local government through use of a scenario planning-based approach. Our aim was to facilitate the organizational actors’ conduct of investigation of the ‘limits of the possible’ for a range of plausible futures and determination of strategic responses to these. Participants used their own current knowledge and understanding as a basis for development, with the introduction of external ‘expertise’ to challenge their thinking and to expand their understanding. Following this, we facilitated the participants’ elucidation of key uncertainties on the future, exploration of the relationships between them and possible outcomes. The participants then constructed scenarios that outlined four possible and plausible futures. These held explicit meaning for the participants, enabled them to identify implications of each possible future in relation to structure and service requirements and informed analysis of current structure, service, etc. We compare and contrast the process and outcomes of our scenario-planning intervention (based on intuitive logics) with both those of other futures methodologies (decision analysis, Delphi and environmental scanning) and with other scenario methodologies (trend-impact analysis and cross-impact analysis). We argue that

$ The authors are members of the Centre for Scenario Planning and Future Studies at the University of Strathclyde Graduate School of Business, Glasgow, UK, and have jointly written The Sixth Sense: accelerating organizational learning with scenarios, published by Wiley, Chichester, 2002. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-141-553-6066; fax: +44-141-552-8851. E-mail address: [email protected] (G. Cairns).

0040-1625/$ – see front matter D 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0040-1625(02)00371-2

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G. Cairns et al. / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 71 (2004) 217–238

the external facilitation of internal generation of knowledge, understanding and meaning, and of exploration of the limits of the possible for the future, is a valuable tool for comprehending strategic choices. We conclude that our scenario approach, utilizing intuitive logics, enables organizational actors to make sense of the complexities and ambiguities that they face and so facilitates strategic change. D 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: e-Government; Scenarios; Futures; Change; Complexity

In this paper, we examine the impact of information and communications technologies (ICT) on government departments/agencies and the contribution of external agents to change and development programs. We describe and discuss our use of scenario planning as a tool for facilitating change, with reference to the limited amount of critical academic literature on scenario planning and with specific critical comparison to other futures methodologies. We do this within the context of government, in the debate on the future role of government and the means by which it might deliver value-based services to its citizenry through the application of new ICT. Based upon our own experience, and by reference to the literature, we discuss external facilitation of change programs such that they have meaning for, and become embedded in the consciousness and subconsciousness of organizational actors. We present evidence of empirical study of our work with a local government organization in the UK (here referred to as Northshire Council) in which our role was that of facilitators of investigation by the elected members and salaried officers of the Council and by members of their partner organizations from the public and not-for-profit sectors. The project was set up in response to a call for submissions for funding from a section of central government under a program entitled ‘Modernizing Government’, concerned with the application of new ICT in support of ‘joined up government’, with the aim of making government more efficient and effective. At the time of our intervention, Northshire Council had been invited to revise their first-round submission for a second round, but had received critical feedback on the lack of clear strategic direction and deliverables within their submission. The primary method applied in the intervention was one of scenario planning, with the key aim that the Council members and officers should develop their own broad understanding of the range of possibilities for the future environment in which they may find themselves operating; in addition, that their strategic thinking should be outward focused, towards the community and its desires, aspirations, service needs, etc., rather than inward focused on the Council’s own intentions, capabilities and service offerings. Whilst the investigation, analysis and critical appraisal was undertaken by the group actors themselves, they received input on the possibilities of technology, governance and other areas from ‘remarkable people’ [1], selected not for their knowledge of Northshire and not to offer any ‘solutions’. Rather, they offered general insights into the ‘limits of the possible’ for futures in and around their area of expertise in order to broaden the range of thinking of the internal participants.


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As external agents in the design of Northshire Council’s change agenda, our aims were fivefold, seeking to facilitate the members’ and officers’ own:

elucidation of key uncertainties on the future investigation of the limits of the possible exploration of the relationships between these and possible outcomes articulation of a range of plausible futures determination of strategic responses

In so doing, we sought to combine the positive elements of intellectual ownership by the Council through personal involvement, along with added surprise and learning value through external input [2]. Our study indicates that the creation of ‘short histories of the future’ by the group, through their own creative and critical engagement with their developing understanding, was a powerful force for change in the mindset and intent of the Council. It enabled members and officers to comprehend the strategic options that were open to them in terms of the impact that these would have on the community, its responses and, ultimately, on themselves. Whilst acknowledging the context-specific nature of the work, we seek to draw out some general points of interest for discussion of the nature of change, the role of external agents and relative usefulness of a range of futures methodologies in structuring judgmental inputs via an action-orientated intervention process.

1. Change and the public sector Since the 1980s, the UK has seen a continuous paradigm shift in public sector management, under both Conservative and Labour governments, from the ‘traditional’ model of public sector, characterized by lack of market incentives and higher levels of bureaucratic rule and regulation than in private sector organizations [3]. Successive governments have sought to establish an approach and a new management ethos that places emphasis on responsiveness to consumers, improved performance and revenue generation in line with the new public management vocabulary [4] and the drive towards debureaucratization [5]. At the beginning of this period of change, the relationship of public/private sector management might have been viewed as dichotomous in terms of concern for, and comfort with stability/change, cost/ revenue, bureaucracy/entrepreneurship [6]. Research in the 1990s showed that this was no longer the case [7] and that the value systems of the public sector were migrating towards those of the private sector. Much of this change towards a private sector ethos has been driven through the involvement of the private sector, partly through programs of privatization of public sector services and utilities, and partly through the involvement of private sector management consultants as change agents in the public sector. Where the external agents’ role is that of deliverer of solutions to organizational problems, it might be characterized as ‘heroic’ [8], providing deliverance that could not be internally conceived. In meeting the aims of the Modernizing Government program, to apply new ICT, there is strong temptation to move

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directly to seeking external solutions, since leading-edge thinking on the new technologies obviously lies within the private sector. Northshire Council themselves, and we as external agents, were not, however, open to consideration of externally generated solutions through application of the ‘expert systems’ model of decision making [9]. Rather, all parties sought to enable internally generated solutions based upon a ‘knowledge-centered’ [9] approach and consideration of the widest possible range of options.

2. Scenarios and the search for unity Many of the models for organizational change that might be considered applicable to a program of public/private sector convergence are embedded in modernist thinking, in search of unitary forms of organization. Such unifying approaches are presented in much of the managerial literature, as in the search for coherence [10], shared vision [11,12], strong and unifying leadership [13] and an integrated organizational culture [14]. In its execution in the practice arena, such rationalist thinking undertaken in search of the causa finalis [15]—the final cause or purpose of human endeavor—is frequently based upon selection and exclusion. Rather than promoting divergence and exploration of multiple possible causal relationships, organizational actors seek the most plausible and acceptable explanation to any problem. They seek firstly to dispel any notions of the unfamiliar, the inexperienced, the uncomfortable [16], then to select only what is new and comfortable; those things for which they can create false similarities [15] with what is already known and familiar. In reality, however, it is often the alien and the inexperienced that will have greatest impact upon organizations, such as the reality that there is a world market for more than five computers, that there is a reason for individuals to have a computer in their home [17]! In contrast to the rationalist, modernist and reductive approach, the nihilist postmodernist may support the conclusion that all cause is deception, all effects ‘super-added’ by human interpretation. Here, there is no unity, no single reality, and no causal relationship in human action. Whilst we argue against the concept of a single reality and unitary thinking, we consider that fragmented nihilist approaches are of little significance to those in the practice arena—those seeking meaning from and for their day-to-day activities. For them, what is required is a way of getting to grips with the causa efficiens [15]—the efficient cause—that might offer meaningful interpretation of managerial thinking/acting. In our scenario-based approach, we argue for thinking which is divergent and nonlinear, not seeking reduction of complexity and ambiguity to a false unity, as in the averaging approach to synthesizing divergent opinions in decision analysis [18]. Neither do we seek abandonment of all notion of cause and effect, no matter how perceptual. Rather, we seek integration of diverse and contradictory concepts into a range of plausible scenario story lines; to seek the causae efficiens—the efficient causes—that will enable individuals and organizations to be proactively prepared for any reasonably possible and plausible future. Whereas decision analysis will apply the probability laws in order to police and to devalue the ‘conjunction fallacies’ [19] by which humans make sense of the events and decisions that they face, scenario planning applies plausibility perceptions to use these fallacies. This is not


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done, as Mintzberg suggests [20] in order that ‘by speculating upon a variety (of futures), you might just hit upon the right one’, but to frame the limits of possibility for a range of plausible futures. This is done with the belief that, barring the unknowable happening, the ‘real’ future will fall somewhere within the established frame. We believe that it is better to be proactively prepared for any reasonable eventuality than to be even the fastest at reacting to emergent reality. In accepting that much of what underpins scenarios is assumption, we see this as a strength, rather than as the weakness claimed by Mintzberg [20]. We see scenarios as a tool to facilitate understanding of the multiple ‘realities’ that are generated by actors in their own individual and shared context(s) of thinking/acting, and to investigate the reasoning and logic that underpins these socially constructed realities [21]. We argue for proactive internal ‘problem seeking’ and conceptualization of options as a means of overcoming adoption of the ‘defensive routines’ [22] that stand in the way of implementation of externally generated solutions. In addition, we argue for the application of the scenario approach as an iterative and proactive form of vigilance in the search for an understanding of what the future might hold, and of what strategies should be pursued in the light of this understanding [23].

3. Method In adopting an organization-centered approach to problem framing, analysis and strategic thinking, we consider it necessary that the exercise be firmly embedded in the organization members’ own context of thinking/acting. However, our experience is that the preexistent boundaries of that context may result in initial definition of a narrow set of problemdefining parameters by the organization. These can place inhibiting constraints upon action, framing the problem at a largely operational level, rather than enabling wide-ranging, innovative and challenging investigation at the conceptual level. For example, in decision analysis practice, there is nothing inherent in the methodology to challenge the decisionmakers’ a priori world-view of the course of unfolding events in the external world. It is against this world-view that decision options are generated and evaluated in decision analysis practice [18]. We seek to broaden the scope of the organizational members’ thinking, reframing their world-view, whilst ensuring that it remains their world-view, rather than that of the external change agents. Throughout the intervention process, therefore, our concentration is upon listening rather than speaking, facilitating rather than directing, questioning rather than answering. In seeking to facilitate the organizational participants’ explorations of the limits of the possible, maintaining complexity and ambiguity without elimination and reduction, the major element of the method applied to the empirical study was that of scenario planning [24]. By this method, we sought to elicit the participants’—both elected members and officers from Northshire and members of their partner organizations from the public and not-for-profit sectors—perceptions of the critical uncertainties [2] that the Council might face in the next 5 years, and to explore the impact of these upon society and the Council’s operations within a range of differentiated but plausible futures.

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In order to determine a meaningful organizational context for the scenario exercise, we first conducted a series of 25 in-depth, semi-structured but open-ended interviews with four elected members and 11 senior officers of Northshire Council and with 10 members of partner organizations. Each of these interviews lasted between 1.5 and 2 h and was designed to facilitate the interviewees’ thinking, firstly about the broadest of issues in the external macroenvironment, with a concentration upon those factors that were considered to be of major relevance to the future sphere of operations of the Council. Then, discussion was moved towards consideration of the internal, microenvironmental factors that related to these macroelements. Thereafter, interviewees were invited to consider the recent history of the Council and how the current status of the microenvironment was derived. Finally, the interview was thrown open to the interviewees to add any further material they considered relevant to the study. By this means, we sought to inspire the interviewees’ thinking, firstly about the future of the world beyond the Council, then on how this would impact upon the Council, and finally to consider the Council’s own legacy systems to the present time. From this process, we derived insights into the organizational problem and the knowledge gaps in relation to it that were seen to be of concern to all the interviewees in relation to the future of Northshire Council. In addition, we were able to attune the participants’ thinking to the concept of looking from the outside in and from the future back to the present, a major element of the scenario thinking process. We sought to share the content of the interviews with all participants, but with the content being nonattributable to individuals, and with some structure that would assist assimilation. The interview transcript report was structured around a range of recurring concepts that were derived from the content of the interviews by a process of grounded analysis, rather than around headings predetermined by us. This report of the interview content was then used as the framework for a scenario agenda workshop, working with the Council’s own ‘scenario team’, consisting of six members derived of the elected members and senior officers. Our role in the workshop was to facilitate the critical engagement of the team with the interview material, to enable and support their own ‘strategic conversation’ [1] in order to seek to identify the critical uncertainties faced by the Council over the next 5 years, from which to derive the framework for the next scenario-building workshop. This framework was therefore derived of the participants’ own thinking on issues, and their personal involvement in the process, in order that they might have intellectual ownership of and belief in the credibility of the content of the resultant scenarios. At the same time, our role as facilitators was designed to minimize the risk of organizational bias and suppression of new ideas and to maximize learning opportunities from innovative external inputs [2]. Having derived a scenario agenda from the set of 25 interviews, working with the smaller group of six, we then facilitated the scenario-building workshop with the original 25 interviewees. Return to the larger group here was intended to maximize involvement in development and ownership of the scenarios. In line with most scenario-planning approaches, the scenario-building process involved initial investigation through surfacing the major driving forces that will influence the development and outcome of critical uncertainties and of the predetermined trends that are considered to be largely predictable


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and thus, a part of all futures. In the latter category fall areas of demographics—most of the Councils’ future ‘customers’ may already be identified and understood—and areas of technological development, whilst the former category includes areas of technology adoption and application and matters of partisan political dogma. After identifying a range of driving forces, the participants were requested to define, in a few words, the two polar outcomes for each uncertainty that were considered feasible within the scenario timeframe and within the particular context of operation. Since the elicitation of driving forces in a large-scale scenario exercise can lead to the surfacing of hundreds of ideas, the next stage is one, not of selection of ideas, but of clustering and determining relatedness, in order to bring manageability without reduction and elimination. It is with these cluster headings— the higher level concepts that describe a complex and discrete, although not independent, subset of the world-view—that participants work in determining the overall scenario outlines. The particular scenario approach adopted [1] differs from the ‘simple scenario’ approach [2] where extreme ‘‘positive’’ and negative scenarios are constructed to ‘‘bound’’ the range of plausible futures—we did not seek to combine different driving force, or groups of driving forces outcomes in terms of positive, negative or stable combinations relative to the current strategic position. Applying our adopted approach, the structure of the scenarios within the general framework of investigation was based upon identification of two scenario dimensions (A and B), the two higher level concepts that exist independently of each other and that are considered to have the greatest perceived combination of high impact upon the organization, with a high degree of unpredictability as to what the outcomes of this impact might be. In relation to these dimensions, we first facilitated brainstorming of descriptors of the futures that were perceived to depict the extremes of each, in isolation of any other factors (A1/A2 and B1/B2), then these extremes were combined in the four possible combinations—in simplistic terms, best/best, best/worst, worst/best and worst/worst (A1B1, A1B2, B2A1 and A2B2)—to create four possible scenario scopes. Next, participants brainstormed descriptors of end-state societies for each of these scenario scopes, then sought to place all the polar outcomes earlier derived for the driving forces into one or more of the scenario scopes, based upon consideration of the internal logic and causal and chronological relationships. Identified trends and predetermineds could, in principle, be located in each of the scenarios. These scenario scopes were then fleshed out by the participants, to link the end states back to the present, through discussion of the logic and causality and of the events that would be required in order to make sense of this. The outcome of this process was a set of four plausible scenarios that incorporate ‘best’ and ‘worst’ case perceptions in different combinations, rather than in isolation of each other, and with acknowledgement that these terms are value laden and context specific. The main stages and elements of this scenario method are as set out in Fig. 1. 3.1. Findings from the scenario exercise From the initial set of 25 in-depth interviews, we determined a vast range of issues that concerned the individuals. The recurring concepts derived from these by grounded analysis

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Fig. 1. Stages and elements of the described scenario process.

that became the ordering structure for our interview report were: the external environment, the role of the Council, values of Northshire Council, forms of organization, the change project itself, issues relevant to other agencies and funding. The interview report was circulated to all interviewees and, having obtained confirmation that the content of the interview record was recognized by the participants as making sense in their own context of thinking/acting, the first workshop was held with the Council’s own scenario team. This was used as a forum for determining the critical uncertainties faced by the Council and its partners relative to the key business problem, in order to set the scenario agenda for the subsequent scenario workshop with the larger group of members, officers and partner organization representatives who had participated in the interviews. This scenario agenda was derived from nine critical uncertainty clusters identified by the participants in this first workshop, that included:

partner agendas—whether partner organizations shared the values of the Council, the commitment to involvement, willingness to share resources, etc. information mapping and understanding the basics of the business—how do current systems relate to knowledge management, can duplicate systems be integrated/eliminated, etc. public ownership—is the commitment to involvement a solution or an ideology, will the public be with the Council, how does it relate to cultures of youth and the underclasses, will participation be hijacked by pressure groups, etc. central agencies as help or hindrance—what is the real agenda of central government, does system centralization conflict with democracy, etc. in addition, what will be the opportunities and constraints offered by new technologies, what resource implications are there for the change process, what will


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be the macro-economic factors of relevance, how will change be managed and what will be the new organizational design required to implement joined up government in the future. In summarizing these nine critical uncertainties, a ‘broad canvas’ for the subsequent scenario workshop was defined around four meta-level themes of:

technology possibilities citizen views of technology solutions and societal acceptance/rejection knowledge management, joined up government and complexity governance and democracy in the future

Prior to the scenario workshop, further input to the participants’ expanding frame of thinking was gained by the invitation of a small number of external experts—remarkable people [1]—to present views on the limits of the possible for the future of ICT, their application to public sector management and the nature of governance and society. Input here from a telecommunications designer put technological capability forecasts into the wider context of the telecommunications industry’s then current financial commitments, the global economic situation, etc., whilst the application capabilities of ICT were demonstrated by ‘virtual visits’ to leading-edge developments in Australia, in Queensland and South Australia. The scenario workshop was structured around our facilitation of the participants’ initial identification of the widest possible range of driving forces that could produce change over the next 5 years. This was an open-ended process, in that no time limit was placed upon it, and it was conducted initially in round-robin format, such that all 25 members provided input in turn until each ran out of ideas. Over a period of some 90 min, over 120 driving forces were identified by individuals and clarified by the group in terms of the plausible polar outcomes within the Council’s context of operations. The driving forces and polar outcomes were recorded, separately and related by number coding (driving force 1 produced polar outcomes 1A and 1B, 2 produced 2A and 2B, etc.) on magnetic hexagons on large wall-mounted boards, so that the entire group could share the content and the process of manipulation of ideas without intervention by us, or without any individual member of the group constraining the thinking according to their own agenda. The driving forces were then clustered by the participants as a group—through a process of manipulation of the hexagons, accompanied by open discussion, argument, negotiation and compromise, again with the aims of investigating perceived causal relationships, and surfacing a manageable number of higher level concepts without reduction. The participants themselves defined these higher level concepts by agreeing encapsulating titles for each cluster. These higher level concepts were then ranked by the participants, firstly according to the relative impact they were considered likely to have on the business problem, and secondly by the perceived relative degree of unpredictability as to what the outcomes of this impact might be over the next 5 years. In accordance with the adopted scenario approach, the scenario dimensions were derived from those two higher level concepts that, whilst not directly driving each other, were con-

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sidered to have the combination of greatest impact, with highest degree of unpredictability as to the outcomes. These scenario dimensions related to the fields of:

the democratic process—primarily concerned with the balance between central and local government, and the effect of the balance struck between these upon delivery of services at the local level by the Council value creation—concerned with the speed of development of new technologies, the capacity for individuals and organizations to internalize these and their use to become more productive

In relation to the democratic process, the participants saw unpredictability as to whether decision making would rest with individuals and with businesses, with minimum intervention from government and the public sector agencies, or whether society would move towards a collectivism in which community issues would come to the fore. In relation to value creation from new technologies, there was unpredictability as to whether technology would be adapted to human needs, unleashing a new productivity through unimpeded uptake, or whether technology uptake would be subject to institutional constraints. The latter situation would see the development of a division between those who have access to and skills to use technologies and those who have either not got access to or cannot use them. In both cases, the impact of the outcomes was considered to have a major impact upon the Council. Through the processes of discussion, negotiation and argument in brainstorming the extremes of the two dimensions, of the four possible combinations of these, then the insertion of all the polar outcomes from the driving forces, the participants built up a rich and internally consistent picture of each of four possible futures, recognized by them as their own work. After the full group had completed this stage, four subgroups then each worked with one member of the facilitation team in order to develop the storyline over time for one of the scenarios. These smaller groups considered the relationships between different factors in terms of perceived cause and effect and chronology. They considered the starting point of the story in relation to aspects of the present, the key events—decisions, developments, exercises of power by key stakeholders, etc.—that would determine and describe its unfolding and the end state that would define it. These short histories of the future were designed, constructed, named and made sense of by the participants themselves, not by us, and were therefore the wholly owned intellectual property of the Council and its partners. They were not represented as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ worlds, nor was any presented as more or less likely than any other. All four were seen as entirely plausible developments that were worthy of consideration in planning the way forward towards modernizing and joining up government through the adoption of new technologies. However, each presented different challenges and different opportunities to the Council. The scenario titles and key identifiers are as follows. 3.1.1. Forward to the past In this future, centralization dominates over dispersed and local governance, and central government runs the show. There are real barriers to change, with restricted funding for local


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government, mismatches in the geographical boundaries of Councils in relation to areas of wealth and employment and a reluctance to share accountability across Councils and agencies. The adoption of new technologies and the resultant productivity improvement in the public sector has come at the expense of local Councils, with a drive towards centralization at government level and to central control or privatization of services at the local level. This future may mark the beginning of the end for local government. 3.1.2. Free enterprise Here, there is emancipation of the public and a drive away from the paternalism of the oldstyle bureaucratic governance. The ‘customer rules’ and market forces are delivering—but only for some. For those with access to and the capability to use new technologies, there is a public-free spirit, with ‘24 7’ access to the ‘new public sector trade’. Whilst there are drives towards achieving economies of scale, there is challenge to the concept of ‘one size fits all’, with a demand for premium services from those who can afford to pay extra for them. There is, however, serious polarization in society, with exclusion from the new society of the underclass who can either ill-afford, or who are ill-equipped to use the emerging technologies. 3.1.3. People’s kailyard1 In this scenario, there is increasing interest in the democratic process, but primarily at a superficial level, rather than with the fundamentals. As such, there is a tendency towards seeking the ‘quick fixes’ to immediate problems, with fear of adverse publicity and media reaction to any perceived failure. New technologies open up new channels of communication from the citizenry, and there is greater social inclusion at the superficial level, with public consultation processes, but a resultant move towards concentration upon dealing with complaints, rather than with serving needs and improving services. As such, there is reinforcement of top–down and fragmented government, lack of real public accountability and an ever-increasing gap between the reality and potential for service effectiveness. 3.1.4. Technology serves Here, there is a combination of technology facilitating increased access by the citizenry and development of a proactive form of civic governance that is based upon meaningful dialogue between citizens and government. Elected members and their officers are enabled to act at the local level for all members of society, including the ‘invisibles’ and the ‘excluded’. National government settles the subsidiarity debate in favor of local democracy and supports trailblazing projects that demonstrate the competence of civic governance, for example, in the field of social housing. Here, the new technologies facilitate a new form of joined up government from the bottom up. Each of the subgroups presented their scenario outline to the full participant group, with the key differences between each clearly differentiating the possibilities for a range of 1

‘Kailyard’ is an old Scots term for ‘cabbage patch’ and was selected by the participants in the subgroup to describe a level of minimum subsistence for members of society, despite vast amounts of expended energy.

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plausible futures. In Forward to the past, there is seen a downward spiral, a vicious circle towards greater centralization and limited or no local government in the future. In Free enterprise, local government is unencumbered by bureaucracy, but there is delivery of ‘premium services’ for those who can/will pay, but with increased polarization, disenfranchisement and fallout in society. In the People’s kailyard, there is mediocrity and, surrounded by legislation, cross-organizational boundary problems, nonstandard protocols, etc.; there is much talk of change, but a continuous finding of new problems to talk about, so no change. In Technology serves, there is a future in which the group’s common aspirations, visions and desires for change are seen to be enabled. Through discussion of the underlying trends and major driving forces that underpinned each of the scenarios, the Council themselves derived an initial set of key implications that were seen to be fundamental to their immediate thinking/acting, if they were to be effective in exerting whatever influence they might reasonably have over the reality of the future that will unfold over the next 5 years. These were:

Northshire Council must lead from the front, with bold steps in developing an integrated and inclusive approach to technological innovation. The dangers of the small step and short-term approach were highlighted in the Kailyard scenario. The Council must promote democracy in action, by making the new technologies serve the people and by using technology to develop ‘civic governance’. They must bring local government closer to the community level, developing high levels of ability to listen and respond to citizen wants and needs. They must develop transparency and accountability in their deeds and actions, with policies that are meaningful to the public. New technologies must be used to demonstrate the competence of local government, achieving public confidence and support through the provision of responsive, communityoriented services, more customized services, whilst at the same time applying the technologies to support inclusion and to reduce inequalities. Northshire Council must use the new technologies in order to promote itself as the ‘home for sustainable value creation’. The Council must proactively promote and lobby for settlement of the subsidiarity debate in favor of governance at the local level. Finally, in developing short-term solutions to immediate problems, the Council must watch out that long-term aspirations remain the guiding light.

From the outcomes of the scenario project and the resultant debate within Northshire Council on the above implications, there have been strategic decisions taken in support of supporting local democracy in action, promoting inclusion, quality and best value and sustainability across the Council’s operations, fostering the concept of joined-up government and seeking to foster the relationship with central government, of whatever political persuasion, whilst promoting the case for Northshire in the widest political and business arenas. In addition to these strategic decisions, there has been operational action in seeking to establish a web-based knowledge and transaction system that will promote a citizen- and business-focused interface between new integrated service demand and provision by the


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Council and its partners, whether based upon integrated systems, or a ‘virtual integration’ of legacy systems.

4. Discussion In the project undertaken with Northshire Council, participants undertook a 10-week strategic conversation process. They worked primarily with their own current knowledge, but were supported and facilitated in challenging their thinking by introduction of external ‘expertise’, and by open, nonhierarchical debate in a nonthreatening environment in which innovation, novelty—even the absurd—were seen as acceptable. Whilst the majority of the data and knowledge input to the scenario process was existent within the organization prior to the project and had informed the first-round submission for the Modernizing Government funding, it was held in discrete chunks, lacking the overall integration that would enable exploration of the widest range of possible and plausible outcomes. Overcoming the lack of integrated yet divergent thinking was the prime aim of the project, helping organizational members to make sense of the complexities and ambiguities of their multiple reality world-views. The participants developed scenarios that held explicit meaning for them at the individual and group levels and identified implications in relation to their understanding of Northshire Council’s structure and service requirements. They then used their own surfaced implications of these scenarios to inform analysis of current structure and service and to devise strategic options for further investigation and implementation. These informed the Council’s revised and successful second-round submission for Modernizing Government funding. In the project, the consideration of outcomes beyond those predicated on current options in a proactive manner and without threat of immediate negative kickback was highlighted in the response to the People’s kailyard scenario. Whilst all four scenarios were seen as plausible by the participants, and all contained some predetermined elements and some consideration of outcomes of uncertainties, it was in the Kailyard scenario that the plausibility of future outcomes caused critical reappraisal of current option preferences. There was deep initial shock within the group to the realization that this scenario outlined a world in which the best intention of the Council, in seeking to push forward with quick steps to ICT implementation and increasing citizen access, might prove counterproductive in the longer term. They saw a situation in which the Council invested in ICT in the immediate future, whilst the citizenry and business increased their skills and access to technology. These effects combined such that ease of access and free communication enabled the public and business to bombard the Council with inquiries, problems, calls for service, to which they were unable to respond due to constraints placed upon them by a powerful central government. The notion that the Council’s actions would become more and more PR oriented, with quick fixes to the superficial aspects of service and long-term deterioration at a fundamental level, was seen as highly plausible. It was also seen as very likely if decisions on rapid uptake of ICT were taken in isolation of wider and longer-term strategic thinking. Within a matter of weeks following the scenario workshop, the Kailyard had become a widely discussed concept within the Council offices. There was evidence of change to mindsets and patterns of behavior that led to reconsideration of current

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ICT strategy and to commitment to the project for appraisal of citizen- and business-focused ICT, with consideration of the systems for associated service delivery.

5. Comparison of scenario planning with alternative futures methodologies Our scenario-thinking intervention contained several distinctive components: 1. the elicitation and exploration of key issues and trends that will impact the future—as surfaced by the widest possible range of decision-makers through interview—in order to establish the recurring concepts and critical uncertainties, and to enable a strategic conversation about the nature of the future. 2. the elucidation of driving forces that underpin the identified trends and uncertainties, the range of possible and plausible polar outcomes of these and exploration of the perceived relationships of chronology and causality between them, based on the scenario team’s clustering and synthesis of them. 3. the synthesis and integration of external expert opinion and knowledge with internal knowledge to inform the scenario team’s identification of driving forces. 4. the identification of key implications of the different scenarios to inform action. Here, the focus is on identifying robust options that will perform well whatever the nature of the future—within the limits of the possible permutated by the identified outcomes of all driving forces, within the scenario framework of the two high-impact/unpredictability scenario dimensions. Our approach can be contrasted with alternative future methodologies that are also designed to ‘‘help inform perceptions, alternatives and choices about the future’’ [25]. For example, in Delphi applications [26,27] the focus is, by contrast, on determining the collective opinion of a group of experts on a well-defined issue that is to be forecast. Four necessary features characterize a Delphi procedure, namely, anonymity, iteration, controlled feedback of the panelists’ judgments and statistical aggregation of group members’ responses. Anonymity is achieved using self-administered questionnaires (on either paper or computer). By allowing the group members to express their opinions and judgments privately, one may be able to diminish the effects for social pressures, as from dominant or dogmatic individuals, or from a majority. Ideally, this should allow the individuals to consider each idea based on merit alone, rather than based on potentially invalid criteria (such as the status of an idea’s proponent). Furthermore, by iterating the questionnaire over a number of rounds, one gives panelists the opportunity to change their opinions and judgments without fear of losing face in the eyes of the (anonymous) others in the group. Our approach can also be contrasted with Environmental Scanning, where the focus is on the identification of trends in economics, technology, politics, ecology and social/culture factors [28]. Environmental Scanning is usually a very separate activity from strategy making, and identified trends are often written up in semi-annual reports for consideration by strategy makers [29].


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Our approach can also be contrasted with decision-analytic approaches to making strategic decisions in the face of uncertainty since—contrary to ‘standard’ applications of decision analysis [18]—participants in the scenario project were able to consider outcomes to critical uncertainties in the environment prior to considering the strategic options for action that may be open to them. In decision analysis, options for action are determined first, and considered outcomes are predicated upon the selected options—‘If we do this, what might happen?’ [18]. We would argue our scenario approach opened up the participants’ thinking to diverge beyond their previous conceptualizations of the limits of the possible, but at a stage when they are able to take proactive vigilant action. That is to say, they were able to reconsider and redesign strategies in response to threats perceived at a theoretical level before they were manifested in reality. Where outcomes considered are limited by options that are constructed early on in the process, such as in decision analysis, reactive response to the process induced, increased threat of unfavorable futures is likely to be defensive avoidance of the decision dilemma [23]. Reviewers of the contributions of futures methodologies have argued [25] that a key focus should be on developing tools for understanding how structural change will occur and how it can be detached. They also argue for closer ties between futures methodologies and the planning/implementation of strategic response. In our view, scenario planning serves these purposes better than any other futures methodology. Nevertheless, our approach to scenario planning is but one of many, and it is to document similarities and differences between extant scenario-planning approaches that we now turn.

6. Differences between our approach to scenario planning and alternative approaches There is no one established methodology for constructing scenarios, methods range from simple unstructured models based on intuition and reasoned judgment to highly sophisticated probabilistic algorithms and causal simulation models. Scenario methodologies have been classified into three categories [30]. 6.1. Intuitive logic This category of approaches is based on the model developed in parallel by Royal Dutch/ Shell and SRI International [31] in what are widely regarded as the seminal articles on the subject of scenarios. As implied by its name, the Intuitive logic model relies on the development of scenarios from ‘‘disciplined intuition’’ [32]. The differentiating feature of this category of scenarios approaches is that they do not use mathematical or computer simulation models, hence, the fact that they are also known as ‘‘heuristic’’ approaches [33–35]. Our approach can be categorized under this heading [1]. 6.2. Trend-impact analysis The trend-impact approach (TIA) is the model most often associated with the Futures Group, based in Connecticut, and is concerned with the effects of trends. In outline, the

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methodology is relatively simple; time series data is collected from which existing trends of key variables are identified and extrapolated into the future using standard extrapolation techniques. Attempts are then made to remedy the deficiencies of the initial extrapolation by explicitly identifying ‘‘impacting factors’’ which are evaluated as to their time-dependent probability of occurrence and their importance. Having done this, an adjusted extrapolation of impacting events is produced and Monte Carlo simulations are usually performed, which simulates the occurrence of the impacting events, to arrive at a ‘‘domain of uncertainty’’ around the original time series forecasts. Finally, scenario narratives which describe the impacting events are then built around the domain of uncertainty [30]. The advantage of this methodology is that it successfully integrates traditional forecasting methods with qualitative data [35]. However, no attempt is made to evaluate the cross-impact of variables, which suggests that the effectiveness of the methodology is limited to situations where only one key variable is being evaluated. (For a detailed account of the TIA methodology, see Refs. [35,36]). 6.3. Cross-impact analysis The cross-impact analysis (CIA) model is associated with the analysis of complex systems and is the generic name for a family of techniques, the conceptual foundation and methodological framework of which is generally attributed to Helmer and Gordon who developed it while at the RAND [35,37]. These techniques attempt to identify not only the individual probabilities of impacting events as in TIA, but also the interactions between impacting events, i.e., the conditional probability of each event given that various other preceding events do or do not occur. The theory underlying CIA is that acknowledging only the individual probabilities of events results in a collection of ‘‘unprocessed initial probabilities.’’ It has long been recognised that one of the major issues in forecasting is that of the interdependencies of events [38]. Events seldom occur in isolation, therefore, it is only when a matrix of the interdependencies between events is examined that a set of ‘‘corrected probabilities’’ can be obtained [39,40]. Since its foundations in the 1960s, a number of proprietary CIA methodologies have been developed, the best known being:

INTERAX (Interactive Cross-impact Simulation) developed by the Centre for Futures Research in the University of Southern California Graduate School of Business. BASICS (Battelle Scenario Inputs to Corporate Strategies) which is an adaptation of the cross-impact technique developed at the RAND and adapted and elaborated upon as a collaborative effort between the various offices of the Battelle Memorial Institute. MICMAC (Cross-impact Matrices-multiplications Applied to Classification) and SMIC (French acronym for Cross-impact Systems and Matrices) both developed by Duperrin and Godet at the Centre for Prospective and Evaluation (CPE) in France.

(These specific CIA methodologies are widely described in the literature, for example, Refs. [35,39,41–43]).


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Both TIA and CIA are sophisticated, highly quantified scenario-modeling techniques and can claim to be more scientifically rigorous methodologies than the intuitive logic methodology. Despite this, survey evidence [44] is that although popular with ‘‘think tanks’’ and academics, it is ‘‘overwhelmingly the case that they are not representative of corporate practice.’’ The respondents indicated a strong preference for intuitive logic-based scenario methodologies that are less quantitative. Nevertheless, despite differences, the central concept underlying scenario-planning models is that there are some elements of the future environment which can be predicted within reasonable confidence intervals, but there are other variables which, by their nature, are fundamentally unpredictable. The predictable environmental variables are widely referred to in the literature as ‘‘predetermined’’ because their outcomes in the future are more or less inevitable as a consequence of existing causal relationships; the unpredictable environmental elements are generally described as ‘‘uncertainties.’’ The objective of scenario planning then is the examination and exploration of the uncertain variables in terms of their possible future outcomes. Examining environmental variables alone (cf. outline of environmental scanning, above) is insufficient; scenarios should also contemplate the strategic actions of competitors and the firm itself [45]. Although perhaps not always made explicit, some form of stakeholder analysis is implicit in most of the models discussed in the literature. The central problem in scenario development, then, is the fact that aside from a limited set of tools, the task is essentially a creative one and the process is ‘‘more art than science’’ [46]. All of the procedures described in the literature rely heavily on subjective judgments and a well-planned group facilitation process. In our experience, facilitation skills are of paramount importance to produce ‘‘process gain’’ within interacting management teams [1]. It must be pointed out, however, that where organizations, or powerful individuals within them, are committed to strategies that are not seen to be robust within particular scenarios and cannot be easily or conveniently changed, the results of the scenario analysis may not be the same as we experienced. Hodgkinson and Wright [47] discuss a failed scenario intervention, in which defensive avoidance results from the realization that there is no realistic hope to find a viable alternative option to current action.

7. Conclusions We accept the context-specific nature of our work, with an organization stimulated by selfinterest in acquiring central government funding and with a history of non-partisan and citizen-oriented governance. In addition, we recognize that Northshire Council’s entry into this intervention process was reactive as a result of the failure of their first-stage bid for Modernizing Government funding. Finally, we acknowledge that the true findings and relevance of the project require appraisal over the time scale of the scenarios—to the year 2005. However, we consider that the following interim conclusions contribute to the debate on organizational change, particularly in the changing environment of the public sector as it seeks to apply private sector values, measures and tools for management.

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We would argue that the outcomes of this intervention are indicative of changed mindsets and behaviors derived specifically from the nature of the self-directed learning process of scenario development, albeit within an organization that was already committed to change, and to internally generated solutions to externally focused problems. We consider, however, that this commitment lacked an effective vehicle for investigation and understanding of the range of complexities and ambiguities that were to be found within the driving forces for change. The scenario process enabled the participants to surface and share their individual perceptions, beliefs, values, concerns, etc., to structure these thematically, without reduction and exclusion and to make different sets of sense of the ambiguities, the conflicts and contradictions, developing a shared framework within which to see different world-views. The role of external agents as facilitators of process which, whilst new to them, involves the internal participants in self-managed critical reflection, learning and sense making, is in contrast to the ‘normal’ management consultancy role. In the facilitation of internally generated, knowledge-focused change [9] the role of the external agent is not conceived as deliverer of expert solutions [8] based upon reduction and striving for unity. Rather, it is seen as provider of input to actor-generated solutions, supporter of divergent thinking and presenter of a wider range of limits of possibility to those internal organizational actors. The combination of external expertise at a general and theoretical level, combined with internal expertise at the particular and operational level, enabled conception and consideration of options that were novel, innovative, yet grounded in the ‘reality’ of Northshire. In this respect, we support the notion of the internal/external input as a ‘both/and’ option [20], rather than as an ‘either/or’ consideration as discussed by Schoemaker [2]. The combination of internal, organization-driven investigation and idea generation supports generation of meaning and intellectual ownership, but is combined with external inspirational conceptualizations based upon surprise and novelty. Our case analysis supports the use of scenario planning as a tool for establishing the limits of possibility and plausibility for ‘the future’, understanding the perceived causal relationships and exploring the limits of the critical uncertainties within the external environment prior to determination of options. As such, scenario planning is a processoriented tool that promotes dissenting opinion, encourages divergent thinking and does not apply selection and exclusion in search of a causa finalis [15], a unity of beliefs and values within the organization. Rather, it provides a means of generating shared, causally generated understanding of plausible futures, some of which may be unfavorable to the organization and its current strategic intent. These may, however, be used to generate shared action in support of the causa efficiens [15] of organizational intent, without development of shared vision [11], organizational coherence [10], or any other form of single-reality unity. This maintenance of divergence of opinion, belief, perception within an overall unifying frame of limits of possibility is in contrast to the reductionist unity of decision analysis and of Delphi, and the disunity—possibly fragmented nihilism—of unstructured group decision making. Our comparative views on scenario planning, decision analysis, Delphi, environmental scanning and unstructured group process are given in Fig. 2.


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Fig. 2. The components of the future methodologies.

In short, our case example supports the use of scenario planning as an organizational process-focused intervention that enhances individual and team views about the nature of the future. This enhanced understanding is, as we have demonstrated, likely to invoke an actionorientated response.

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[30] W.R. Huss, A move towards scenario analysis, International Journal of Forecasting 4 (3) (1988) 377 – 388. [31] P. Wack, Scenarios: uncharted waters ahead, Harvard Business Review 63 (5) (1985) 73 – 89; P. Wack, Scenario: shooting the rapids, Harvard Business Review 63 (5) (1985) 73 – 89. [32] H. Jungermann, M. Thuring, The use of mental models for generating scenarios, in: G. Wright, P. Ayton (Eds.), Judgmental Forecasting, Wiley, London, 1987, pp. 245 – 266. [33] P.J.H. Schoemaker, When and how to use scenario planning: a Heuristic approach with illustration, Journal of Forecasting 10 (1991) 549 – 564. [34] T.F. Mandel, Scenarios and corporate strategy: planning in uncertain times, Research Report 669, SRI International Business Intelligence Programme, 1982. [35] W.R. Huss, E.J. Honton, Scenario planning—what style should you use? Long Range Planning 20 (4) (1987) 21 – 29. [36] T.H. Gordon, H.S. Becker, H. Gerjuoy, Trend-Impact Analysis: A New Forecasting Tool, The Futures Group, Glastonbury, CT, 1974. [37] H.T. Allen, New Methods in Social Science Research, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1978. [38] F.S. Pardee, Technological Projects and Advanced Product Planning, RAND, Santa Monica, CA, 1967, July. [39] M. Godet, Scenarios and Strategic Management, Butterworth Scientific, London, 1987. [40] M. Godet, The art of scenarios and strategic planning: tool and pitfalls, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 65 (2000) 3 – 22. [41] T.J. Gordon, H. Hayward, Initial experiments with cross impact matrix method of forecasting, Futures 1 (2) (1968) 100 – 116. [42] R.B. Mitchell, J. Tydemann, D. Georgiades, Structuring the future: applications of a scenario-generation procedure, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 14 (4) (1979) 409 – 428. [43] G. Ringland, Scenario Planning: Managing for the Future, Wiley, Chichester, 1998. [44] R. Linneman, H.E. Klein, The use of multiple scenarios by U.S. industrial companies, Long Range Planning 12 (1) (1979) 83 – 90. [45] K. Warren, Exploring competitive futures using cognitive mapping, Long Range Planning 28 (5) (1995) 10 – 21. [46] P.J.H. Schoemaker, C.A.H.M. van der Heijden, Integrating scenarios into strategic planning at Royal Dutch/ Shell, Planning Review 20 (3) (1992 May – June) 41 – 46. [47] G.P. Hodgkinson, G. Wright, Confronting strategic inertia in a top management team: learning from failure, Organization Studies, in press. George Cairns is Senior Lecturer in Management. His research focuses on the relationships between the social, physical, technological and organizational environments of the workplace. He has worked with major organizations on workplace appraisal and design and has also been involved in scenario projects for organizational change in local government. He has given invited presentations on workplace scenarios in the UK, Poland, Czech Republic and Australia.

George Wright is Professor of Decision Making, with consultancy experience in the areas of scenario planning and decision making in the UK and Asia. He has also worked in the development of expert systems for strategic advantage in financial services organisations. He has published eight books and over 100 articles on the role and quality of judgment in forecasting and decision making.

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G. Cairns et al. / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 71 (2004) 217–238 Ron Bradfield is Lecturer in General and Strategic Management. Ron previously worked as an accountant and spent 15 years in various senior management positions in the UK, Canada and the USA. He has conducted many strategy and scenario-planning programmes in the USA, UK, Europe and SE Asia. His research interest focuses on institutional learning and sense-making processes in strategic planning.

Kees van der Heijden was until recently General and Strategic Management Professor. He was previously Head of the Business Environment Division of Group Planning at Royal Dutch/Shell, London, where he was responsible for the development and application of Shell’s scenario planning, including monitoring and analysing the business environment and communicating with top management on strategic implications. Kees is Co-founder and Network Member of Global Business Network, Emeryville, CA, and is author of Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation.

George Burt is Lecturer in Business Strategy and the Management of Change. His research interest focuses on scenario planning, and he has recently conducted scenario planning for a major organization in Malaysia. He was previously a management consultant with P-E International and Coopers and Lybrand in London, West Africa and Glasgow, preceded by a period in banking.