FORESIGHT Fall 2011 34

BOOK REVIEWS
Scenario Planning in
Organizations
(BK, 2011, ISBN 978-1-60509-
413-7)
by Tomas Chermack, is an
encyclopaedic work on scenario
planning in 250 pages. If that sounds
like an oxymoron, it is, and this points to the
strengths and weaknesses of the book.
On the one hand, Chermack, has ventured
where no scenario theorist or analyst has
dared to tread: into the quagmire of the 30
years or so of scenario-practitioner history,
trying to make sense of it, not just in terms
of utility but also of category what goes
with what and how it all fts together. On
the other hand, while every signifcant piece
of scenario history and method gets its fve
minutes of fame, this is decidedly less than
the Andy Warhol minimum, so much of the
book develops a tour-guide feel.
In the scenarios feld, theory has mostly been
derived retrospectively, which is a diplomatic
way of saying it is what practitioners have
written down as lessons learned afer the fact,
based on their experiences with clients. Tis
is not necessarily bad; theories grounded in
practice are a good thing. But it has led to a
hodgepodge of defnitions and methods amid
a cacophony of claims and counter-claims
to best practice in scenarios work. So far
nobody has sought to make sense of all this,
and this is Chermacks call to arms. As an
academic rather than a facilitator, he brings
careful analysis and taxonomy to the body
of recorded thinking, giving each mode and
orientation its place in the cosmos.
Moreover, the book attempts to place the
elements of scenario theory within its
broader intellectual and cognitive base,
for example situating strategic decision-
making issues within the general problems
of strategy or the issue of mental models
within cognitive theory. In other words,
the author has the intellectual resources
to link scenario practices to the broader
archaeology of knowledge that underpins it,
which is unusual in the feld.
In these ways, Scenario Planning in
Organizations is encyclopaedic in the
original sense when it comes to scenarios
background. (Not quite so when it comes
to a framework for doing scenarios. Here
Chermack falls back heavily on the Shell/
GBN approach). Nevertheless, as a whole,
the book has a broad grounding and a
balanced approach to alternative actors and
orientations that is valuable. Tis is the work
I would (and will) prescribe for scenarios
courses I run for MBAs and executives.
Having said that, the book would have been
far better with real practical examples, either
Scenario Planning in Organizations, by Tom Chermack
Scenario Thinking: Practical Approaches to the Future,
by George Wright and George Cairns
Rov|owod by Adam Godon
www.forecasters.org/foresight FORESIGHT
35
from Chermacks own work or from the
general archive of scenario projects, many of
which are in the public domain. Chermack
does cite an extended case study of a project
done for an unnamed technology company.
Tis is jaw-dropping. Case studies are
interesting and worth the readers attention
because of who the company is, and most
authors seem to be able to get permission
to name companies in their examples just
fne. So the tale of an anonymous company
merely serves to underline a theory-heavy
orientation rather than bring the text to life.
And as the book proceeds without real world
examples worth having, this regularly puts a
how-do-you-know? question mark in the
mind of the reader.
It is only late in the book that Chermack
breaks out of observer mode and ventures
his own addition to the feld; he calls it
performance-based scenario planning.
Tis means structuring-in an evaluative
assessment of a scenario project. Chermacks
method amounts to asking standard project-
assessment questions applying qualitative
(exit interview) as well as more formal
survey assessments, leading to feedback
along the dimensions of a) satisfaction of
participant and stakeholders; b) participant
and organizational learning; and c) project
performance, particularly a cost-beneft
analysis.
In one sense, why quibble? A bit of
evaluation cant hurt. Or can it? Heres a
randomly selected assessment question
in the list proposed (p. 196): I learned
about the industry and environment in
this project. [Strongly Agree Agree No
Opinion Disagree Strongly Disagree.]
Te problem is that even strongly agree
doesnt tell us what we need to know, because
the test of good scenarios is not whether the
participant (or the organization) learned a
lot, but whether they learned enough. Tat is,
enough to survive and thrive in a changing
world. Internal satisfaction (or any internal
test) counts little. What counts is whether
the scenario-prepared organization survives
the external tests the world will throw at it.
Further, scenarios are about challenging
mental models, creating a better alignment
between mental maps of the future and the
future. By defnitions, no self-assessment
evaluation can be adequate for this.
When it comes to cost-beneft evaluation,
the problems get even trickier. Te costs
of a scenario project are easy to tally, but
what about the benefts? Not only is it hard
to audit how much of a successful decision
for the future can be attributed to scenarios,
but, more vexingly, the beneft may be due
to what institutions dont do (calamities
avoided.) Tat is, the fnancial gain may
be in money not lost, and this is hard to
count, to say the least. Chermack does not
get into these problemsthe real ones that
bedevil the quest to assess scenarios
efectively.
Scenario Tinking:
Practical Approaches to
the Future
(Palgrave, 2011, ISBN 978-0-
230-27156-2)
by George Wright and George
Cairns, is a collaboration
of two of the fve authors,
including Kees v.d. Heijden,
who wrote Te Sixth Sense: Accelerating
Organizational Learning with Scenarios
(2002), which remains a book of such
excellence and importance in the feld that
ones frst question is: what do the authors
have to add?
It becomes clear that the purpose of the book
is, as the authors state: a detailed, step-by-
step approach to enable the reader to create
scenarios without the aid of an experienced
"The test of good scenarios is not whether the participant (or
the organization) learned 'a lot,' but whether they learned
enough."
FORESIGHT Fall 2011 36
scenario practitioner, and particularly to
shore up the idea that scenario-building
must be an internal, team-oriented process
within the organization rather than a task
for an external consultant or consulting frm
that manufactures scenarios for clients out
of trend research and analysis. For Wright
and Cairns the beneft of scenarios is in their
allowing (or forcing) actual decision makers
in any situation to surface and constructively
grapple with the key issues facing them. As
they put it, it is about opening up strategic
conversation around the diference of
opinion, values, beliefs and priorities.
But there are many ways of opening up
this kind of conversation. And if this watery
wording is in fact the goal, it is not clear
scenario building is the best path to it. In fact
scenarios have a much tighter purpose: a) to
facilitate decision-makers identifcation of
uncertain and important (to the success of
their decisions) drivers of change; and b) to
encourage the pre-exploration of alternative
outcomes that arise from alternative
resolution of these important uncertainties.
As a result, the key dimensions of the future
operating environment should be shown,
and possible responses considered, all in a
non-predictive way.
Tis being said, there is no doubt that
scenario-building has become common
enough, and perhaps fashionable enough,
that many consulting frms have piled in to
provide this service, and in doing so ofer
glossy, external, desk-studied scenarios that
are rich in content but have little connection
with decision makers nor leverage their
insight. So the critique and positioning of
Wright and Cairns is merited and justifed.
Te work then proceeds to outline the internal
team-based process that an organization
could follow, in a clear and rich way, showing
a good grasp of the kinds of crunch points
that bedevil scenario-building (and perhaps
any team-based exercise that is both creative
and difcult.) It is sophisticated in questions
of perception and cognitive bias which
are key obstacles to tackle and takes the
reader all the way to decision analysis and
organization receptiveness stages, which is
welcome.
In sum, in a 160-page book, the authors
give the reader a road-tested, cut-to-the-
chase guide to the key elements of creating
and managing the scenario process without
external help. Whether this is realistic
whether line managers or other foresight
non-experts in a frm can or even want to
proceed on their own remains unclear.


Adam Gordon, Director, Adap-
tive Future Leadership, is author,
facilitator, researcher, consultant,
and teacher in the feld of strate-
gic foresight. See his website at
http://futuresavvy.netadam.
gordon@futuresavvy.net
"There is no doubt that scenario-building has become
common enough, and perhaps fashionable enough, that
many consulting frms have piled in to provide this service,
and in doing so ofer glossy, external, desk-studied scenarios
that are rich in content but have little connection with
decision makers nor leverage their insight."