In this MOOC, you will learn how to better anticipate the future, and reinvent yourself and your activity accordingly. By the end of the course, you’ll be able to account for the broader context and the possible convergence of long-term trends, and thus be able to develop a long-term, consistent strategy and vision, beyond mere day-to-day tactics. Thanks to this approach and mindset, you will become more agile and more resilient in a highly complex and uncertain landscape. In this class, you will not only learn the academic and theoretical aspects of strategic foresight, uncertainty and planning. We will also discuss very practical examples, ranging from a discussion on choosing the best outfit for a walk in the countryside to building a vision and strategy for a corporation as a CEO. In practical assessments, you will apply this broad approach to sample examples as well as to your personal and professional challenges. So if you are an entrepreneur, this course will help you identify the new ideas, the new business model and/or the new products that will help you remain relevant in the future. If you are a manager or an executive, by taking this course, you will be able to test whether your current approach and allocation of resources are appropriate given tomorrow's possible challenges. More generally, all kinds of decision-makers who look to think more strategically about their position and seek to improve it will find this course useful to think about the future constructively.
Horizon scanning
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來自 HEC Paris 的課程
Anticipating Your Next Battle, in Business and Beyond
58 個評分
從本節課中
Drawing the Map of the Future
This module will introduce you to the basic tools you need to master in order to identify the forces shaping the future. In particular, you will familiarize yourself with the basics of horizon scanning, historical analysis, feedback, microeconomic analysis and cultural analysis. After completing this module, you will be able to understand the factors that can influence future scenarios and to define and describe these potential future scenarios.
與講師見面
Jeremy GhezAffiliate Professor of Economics and International Affairs
Economics and Decision Sciences
The most obvious tool an analyst can rely on
to reinvent for the future is horizon scanning.
Horizon scanning is about identifying the issues over the horizon
that could profoundly shape the future landscape,
though they may not be doing so currently.
One governmental report in the UK defined horizon scanning as
“A systematic examination
of information to identify potential threats,
risks,
emerging issues
and opportunities,
allowing for better preparedness
and the incorporation of
mitigation and exploitation
into the policy-making process."
In other words, horizon scanners in the policy-making world
are interested in determining
how emerging issues could lead decision-makers to
review their current approaches
so as to better adapt them to future needs and challenges.
Horizon scanning should also make current strategies
less vulnerable to future uncertainty.
The same holds true for the private sector.
As managers consider the emerging trends and developments
that matter to them,
they can adapt their long-term strategic approach.
Indeed, they can identify the future sources of value and growth
that will matter most to them in the future.
And in both the private sector and the policy-making world,
the take-away lesson should be the same.
Everything is not a strategic surprise.
With thorough analysis, with a little bit of curiosity and imagination,
the analyst has ways of identifying and anticipating
the threats and the opportunities to think about
for the future of her activities.
You should think about this for a moment.
What issues over the horizon do you face, as an individual
both at a personal level and at a professional level?
Pause this video and think about it for a moment.
I'm sure you came up with numerous answers.
The trick probably lies in asking yourself this question
at different key moments of your life.
The example of the changing nature of information,
entertainment and communication
is an another interesting example that we should think about.
Consider what your grandparents used to call phones,
back in the old days.
Those old devices look rather unimpressive to most of us,
at least from a technical standpoint and expect, perhaps, for collectors.
Now, think about
the technological advances we’ve made since then
and how technically sophisticated
smartphones are.
Wondering about the future of voice communication,
given these evolutions, is a rather legitimate question.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Think about what “going to the movies” meant in the 1920s for instance.
Consider how televisions transformed the entertainment experience at home,
which heavily relied on radio, a voice-only entertainment, prior to that.
And think about not only what a TV now looks like,
but also how all associated products have evolved
and what they can now do.
Last but not least, think about what “going to the movies” means today.
Again, asking the question of the future
of entertainment is legitimate.
Let’s take this a step further.
Think about what a computer looked like not so long ago.
And think about what it now looks like,
and how it keeps on changing even in the short run,
and all the things we can do with it.
Here too, it is easy to accept
that the future of computing and computers
is a fully open question.
One last step. Consider what game consoles looked like yesterday
and what they are today.
Some are more powerful, far more powerful even, than what
you could have ever imagined two decades ago.
In each of these instances, the rate at which the devices has evolved,
and the way media is shared has changed
is striking and can seem impressive to some of us.
But what’s more,
it is not hard to observe how these different products are interacting
with each other
and how the boundaries between each is increasingly blurry.
It is not hard either to imagine how
these increasingly portable
and increasingly interactive tools
could merge
and create new opportunities
for a wide range of industries and actors, in the future.
Horizon scanning is interested in that convergence
and the interactions between a wide range of trends
that initially did not seem destined to meet.
In practice, horizon scanning can be carried out through
three different and non-mutually exclusive channels.
The first one is brainstorming.
Get a bunch of smart people in a room to think about the future of a topic.
In the end, you are likely to get new insights
and novel ways of thinking
that could help an organization adapt its approach
in order to fully capitalize on future gains.
Data analysis can be another helpful approach.
As the attention
that the “big data” question
has recently gotten suggests,
accessing data has become increasingly easier.
It’s a matter of making sense out of observable trends
and thinking about how they could evolve in the future.
Yesterday's data analyst is increasingly becoming the
social scientist of tomorrow.
Last but not least, intuition can be helpful.
An analyst with experience can legitimately believe
that the small clues she’s collecting
on the ground as well as her own logic
could be enough evidence to act upon it.
Some countries and regions like the UK, the US and the EU
and Singapore have institutionalized horizon scanning
at the government level.
It’s interesting that in each instance,
the private sector is consulted or could rely
on the work that is done in order to better anticipate future trends.
Today, in the US and in the EU,
influential reports about the world in fifteen years
have focused on
issues over the horizon,
that could shape the future landscape.
These reports are well-known and debated in policymaking
and business circles. You’ll get a chance to look at these
after this video is done.
In Singapore, the Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) program
developed what is now known as
“whole-of-government approaches”
which, in the organization's own words, “hinges on a
collaborative approach linking ministries and agencies
across government.
It has the potential to connect silos and challenge mindsets,
develop an instinct to share,
and encourage a collective analysis of possible futures."
In all of these instances, a wide range of actors,
coming from a wide range of industries and activities,
look to discuss future realities
that could emerge tomorrow and
that can be identified as early as today.
So remember. Not everything is a strategic surprise.
Not everything is top secret either.
Before we conclude, let’s remember how you can carry out
horizon scanning meaningfully.
Does horizon scanning rely on:
A – Brainstorming
B – Data Analysis
C – Your intuition
D – All of the above?
The answer is D, of course.
You’ll have indeed noted from this discussion that,
because everything is not unpredictable,
some issues over the horizon can be identified thanks to
brainstorming,
data analysis,
and intuition.
The real requirement lies in better awareness of the landscape.
The bottom line? With thorough analysis,
a bit of imagination
and a bit of curiosity,
decision-makers can think about
the future emerging realities.
