Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Scenarios are intended to describe alternative futures that are different to each other, so that
pathways can be developed from the present towards that future direction. Ideally, future
images can be developed and discussed that tend to be 'invisible' under more conventional
forecasting approaches. This type of approach can help us think more deeply and imaginatively
about the future, limiting to an extent the risk of being surprised and unprepared; and also, if
the future is likely to be uncertain, scenario analysis can help us to prepare for multiple plausible
futures, not just the one we expect to happen (Bishop et al., 2007).
The depiction of different images of the future hence offers a glimpse of alternative
possibilities. Working definitions for scenario analyses date back to Kahn and Wiener in the
mid-1960s and earlier, when scenarios were defined as 'hypothetical sequences of events for
the purpose of focusing attention on causal processes and decision points' (Kahn and Wiener,
1967). A well-used definition also emanates from work in the Netherlands: 'a description of
society's current situation (or a part of it), of possible and desirable future societal situations,
and the series of events between current and future situations' (Becker and Van Houten, 1982).
Thus scenarios are aimed at understanding Lindblom's (1979) 'range of impossibilities' -
the indeterminate factors - that we find difficult to understand to the left of the continuum
(
Figure 2.11
). The complete synoptic analysis, however, is difficult against complex problems,
as there always remain a number of issues we cannot foresee.
The range of
impossibilities
All of us are in
this range
Synoptic Analysis:
Meeting all conventional
theoretical requirements
Grossly Incomplete
Analysis
Strategic analysis: we can
aspire to this range
Figure 2.11
The analysis continuum
Source
: Lindblom, 1979.
The early work by Herman Kahn was developed at the RAND Corporation, and it addressed
military scenarios. Later, at the Hudson Institute, Kahn developed scenarios for the Air Defence
System Missile Command and a radical critique of US military strategy in the thermonuclear
age (Kahn, 1960; 1962; 1965; Kahn and Wiener, 1967; Kahn, 1984). He believed that military
planning tended to be based on 'wishful thinking' rather than sensible expectations. One of
his most well-known scenario-based studies was originally developed for the US federal
government in the 1950s to study how nuclear wars might start and develop (Van der Heijden,
1996). He became known for 'thinking the unthinkable', including creative but dire scenarios
baseline was that it was very unlikely to happen, due to the frequency of 'uncertain' events
occurring; he purportedly coined this as: 'The most likely future isn't' (Bishop et al., 2007).
Kahn was extremely innovative in his approach, including in the use of phraseology and
language to enrich his view of possible futures. But (with hindsight) he didn't consider one
of the major societal problems of today, namely that of climate change.
Scenario analysis again proved popular in the 1970s, utilised to consider the 'possible,
probable and preferable' futures in times of energy shortages and high prices (Toffler, 1972).
Organisations such as General Electric, Shell Oil (Pierre Wack) and the Stanford Research
Institute (Peter Schwartz) developed scenario analysis in terms of business planning. Shell's
management team used scenarios to assess how consumers and countries might react to oil
shortages, and to determine how they should respond relative to their competitors in dealing
with the shock of the oil crisis in 1973 and its aftermath. Wack (1985b) utilised and developed
