This document provides an overview of futures studies and strategic foresight as tools for guiding decisions under uncertainty. It discusses key concepts in futures thinking like scenarios, status quo bias, and thinking like a futurist. Examples are given of organizations that conduct futures research, like the MIT Future Freight Flows Project and the University of Houston Foresight Program. Tools for futures thinking are also outlined, such as embracing complexity, building cognitive diversity, and addressing biases.

1. How to Predict the
Future(s) - Futures Studies
and Foresight as Guidance
for Uncertain Times
Jeremy Pesner

2. tosolution.com

3. Michelle Darling

4. What is Futurism?
…or Futures Studies?
…or Strategic Foresight?

5. Not FuturismFuturism

6. Future Freight Flows Project at MIT

7. Think Like a Futurist (Sommers, 2012)

8. University of Houston Foresight Program

9. Internet Movie Database

11. The Holocaust Explained

12. wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

13. money.cnn.com

14. The New York Times

17. Status Quo Bias
• A preference for the current state of affairs
• Current baseline (or status quo) is taken as reference
point
• Any change from that baseline is perceived as a loss
Wikipedia

18. pluggedin.com

19. Shell Celebrates 40 Years of Scenarios

20. Mo Future
Mo Money
…and fewer problems

21. ort-termism is rising, that it harms corporate performance, and that it has cost millions of jobs and trillions in GDP
- Measuring the Economic Impact of Short-Termism

22. Futurist Mindset
• Have positive expectations about the future
• Know your biases
• Self-Delusion and wishful thinking are barriers to
foresight
• Build teams with high cognitive diversity
• Embrace complexity alongside linear thinking
• Different changes occur at different rates and have
impact at different times
Thinking about the Future (Hines, Bishop, 2013)

24. Robert Crumb

25. Future Freight Flows Project at MIT

26. Maree Conway

27. elearninternational.co.uk

28. Department of Transportation

30. scenarios2strategy.com

31. bleepingcomputer.com

33. wikivisually.com/wiki/futures_studies

34. The largest membership-based organization for people interested in the future
wfs.org

35. The Community Builder’s Approach to Theory of Change, Aspen Institute

36. Shutterstock

37. Pollenizer

38. tosolution.com