00:00:00.000 –> 00:00:03.399
an organization a leader being just a passive

00:00:03.399 –> 00:00:07.960
victim to be a to be actually in fact an active

00:00:07.960 –> 00:00:13.779
agent so that um thank you can i quickly go and

00:00:13.779 –> 00:00:15.880
answer the door if you’re gonna pat because somebody’s

00:00:15.880 –> 00:00:18.820
ringing my doorbell and it’s not stopping yeah

00:00:18.820 –> 00:00:22.660
i’ll be back yeah i know what’s going on is in

00:00:22.660 –> 00:00:29.070
me yeah Welcome to Scenarios for Tomorrow, a

00:00:29.070 –> 00:00:31.469
podcast where we turn tomorrow’s headlines into

00:00:31.469 –> 00:00:34.189
today’s thought experiments. This first series

00:00:34.189 –> 00:00:36.630
includes conversations with the authors of our

00:00:36.630 –> 00:00:39.549
latest book, Improving and Enhancing Scenario

00:00:39.549 –> 00:00:42.729
Planning, Futures Thinking Volume, from Edward

00:00:42.729 –> 00:00:46.390
Elgar Publishing. I’m your host, Dr. Megan Crawford.

00:00:46.770 –> 00:00:48.570
And throughout this first series, you’ll hear

00:00:48.570 –> 00:00:51.390
from my guests the numerous global techniques

00:00:51.390 –> 00:00:54.149
for practicing and advancing scenario planning.

00:00:54.390 –> 00:01:06.099
Enjoy. Today we are lucky to have three guest

00:01:06.099 –> 00:01:09.359
authors with us. Maureen Meadows is professor

00:01:09.359 –> 00:01:11.939
of strategic management in the Center for Business

00:01:11.939 –> 00:01:15.799
in Society at Coventry University. She co -leads

00:01:15.799 –> 00:01:18.680
the research cluster data organization and society.

00:01:19.299 –> 00:01:21.760
Maureen’s background is in big data, customer

00:01:21.760 –> 00:01:24.599
analytics and governance of data where she has

00:01:24.599 –> 00:01:27.739
worked as both practitioner and academic. If

00:01:27.739 –> 00:01:30.079
you’re interested in learning more, you can purchase

00:01:30.079 –> 00:01:32.760
her latest book, which is the second edition

00:01:32.760 –> 00:01:36.480
of Strategy, Theory, Practice, and Implementation

00:01:36.480 –> 00:01:41.180
from Oxford University Press. Frances O ‘Brien

00:01:41.180 –> 00:01:44.420
is an associate professor of operational research

00:01:44.420 –> 00:01:46.680
and analytics at Warrick Business School, my

00:01:46.680 –> 00:01:50.019
alma mater, where she teaches across undergraduate,

00:01:50.359 –> 00:01:53.870
MBA, and executive education. Her work looks

00:01:53.870 –> 00:01:56.189
at the use of tools such as scenario planning

00:01:56.189 –> 00:01:58.989
to support organizational strategic development.

00:01:59.989 –> 00:02:02.209
Francis’s background includes working at Ford

00:02:02.209 –> 00:02:05.290
of Europe, which is a subsidiary of Ford Motor

00:02:05.290 –> 00:02:08.870
Company as their operational research analyst,

00:02:09.210 –> 00:02:13.669
specializing in simulation modeling, manpower

00:02:13.669 –> 00:02:18.889
planning, and optimization. And the third member,

00:02:19.039 –> 00:02:22.219
of our panel today is Alessandro Merendito. He

00:02:22.219 –> 00:02:25.520
is a lecturer in accounting at Queen Mary University

00:02:25.520 –> 00:02:28.360
in London and a qualified charter accountant

00:02:28.360 –> 00:02:31.120
member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants

00:02:31.120 –> 00:02:34.360
in England and Wales. Alessandro’s work focuses

00:02:34.360 –> 00:02:37.939
on digital integration, particularly how big

00:02:37.939 –> 00:02:41.479
data and AI are shaping strategic decisions and

00:02:41.479 –> 00:02:44.840
digital strategies. And after all of that, welcome,

00:02:44.900 –> 00:02:47.259
everyone. It’s very great to have you here today.

00:02:47.759 –> 00:02:52.120
Thanks, Megan. Given the hurricane path that

00:02:52.120 –> 00:02:54.900
our book took, which is about two years in change,

00:02:55.460 –> 00:02:58.740
there’s never really been a good chance for Alessandro

00:02:58.740 –> 00:03:02.240
and I to meet, and that is until today. So welcome

00:03:02.240 –> 00:03:05.620
to our inner circle, Alessandro. Thank you, Megan.

00:03:06.199 –> 00:03:10.460
I’m grateful to be here. Great. And Maureen and

00:03:10.460 –> 00:03:13.979
Frances, you’ve been working together for years

00:03:13.979 –> 00:03:18.169
in your professional capacity and have impacted

00:03:18.169 –> 00:03:21.590
the field of scenario planning on several fronts,

00:03:22.509 –> 00:03:23.990
including both of your works have influenced

00:03:23.990 –> 00:03:26.870
my research and will continue to influence my

00:03:26.870 –> 00:03:30.870
research and I’m very grateful for it. And particularly

00:03:30.870 –> 00:03:34.449
in that not just the practice of scenario planning,

00:03:34.870 –> 00:03:39.110
but now in a broader sense of foresight and futures

00:03:39.110 –> 00:03:44.030
thinking. So welcome. As mentioned in the introduction,

00:03:44.030 –> 00:03:46.490
we’ve just published a book together about scenario

00:03:46.490 –> 00:03:50.229
planning in the 21st century. And here in 2025,

00:03:50.409 –> 00:03:52.169
right at the quarter century mark, we’re here

00:03:52.169 –> 00:03:55.189
to talk a bit about that. We understand that

00:03:55.189 –> 00:03:58.030
not all of our listeners are familiar with scenario

00:03:58.030 –> 00:04:01.449
planning or scenario planners, though they may

00:04:01.449 –> 00:04:03.830
have heard more about it since the pandemic when

00:04:03.830 –> 00:04:07.969
we got extremely popular. And one of the motivations

00:04:07.969 –> 00:04:11.009
to this podcast is to bring our world of futures

00:04:11.009 –> 00:04:14.129
and foresight science outside the walls of academia,

00:04:14.849 –> 00:04:18.810
where within language is closely controlled and

00:04:18.810 –> 00:04:22.709
knowledge is not as easy to access as we generally

00:04:22.709 –> 00:04:25.250
wish it to be, which just means we’re here to

00:04:25.250 –> 00:04:28.209
have a chat with the public. So let’s get into

00:04:28.209 –> 00:04:32.709
it. Your chapter in the book is titled, In the

00:04:32.709 –> 00:04:36.410
Thick of It, Scenario Planning at a Time of Crisis.

00:04:37.310 –> 00:04:42.040
You are I do believe the only chapter that really

00:04:42.040 –> 00:04:46.540
brings in the concepts that you discuss, which

00:04:46.540 –> 00:04:50.560
is an incredible for it, an incredible addition

00:04:50.560 –> 00:04:54.439
to the overall narrative. So let’s start at a

00:04:54.439 –> 00:04:59.560
grounding level, right? How do you define scenario

00:04:59.560 –> 00:05:02.420
planning? So I think I’m answering this question,

00:05:03.279 –> 00:05:06.680
or at least I’m starting off. So scenario planning

00:05:06.680 –> 00:05:11.019
is a methodology by which I mean it’s a series

00:05:11.019 –> 00:05:17.040
of steps that people follow typically as a group

00:05:17.040 –> 00:05:22.139
participatively facilitated by an expert scenario

00:05:22.139 –> 00:05:26.839
planner and it’s a methodology which seeks to

00:05:26.839 –> 00:05:33.089
develop a set of scenarios which are then used

00:05:33.089 –> 00:05:38.810
for some purpose by the group. So a scenario

00:05:38.810 –> 00:05:44.829
is a description or a story of a possible future,

00:05:45.649 –> 00:05:48.790
and scenarios are typically presented as sets

00:05:48.790 –> 00:05:52.389
to acknowledge that the future is uncertain.

00:05:52.569 –> 00:05:56.250
If you were to just create a single story about

00:05:56.250 –> 00:05:58.970
the future, that would be equivalent to a forecast.

00:05:59.560 –> 00:06:02.120
But given that we don’t know what the future

00:06:02.120 –> 00:06:06.959
will contain, how it will develop, the idea is

00:06:06.959 –> 00:06:10.620
that you develop a set of scenarios, typically

00:06:10.620 –> 00:06:14.980
between two and four is what the literature says

00:06:14.980 –> 00:06:18.560
is useful for people to manage, and you develop

00:06:18.560 –> 00:06:23.259
this set in order to try to capture the uncertainty

00:06:23.259 –> 00:06:25.459
about the future. So we don’t know what the future

00:06:25.459 –> 00:06:29.759
might look like. We are not simply going to project

00:06:29.759 –> 00:06:33.139
historical patterns because historical patterns

00:06:33.139 –> 00:06:36.699
don’t always replicate themselves and things

00:06:36.699 –> 00:06:39.839
happen that we don’t necessarily anticipate or

00:06:39.839 –> 00:06:42.459
foresee. So the idea with the set of scenarios

00:06:42.459 –> 00:06:48.740
is you capture a range of uncertainty about multiple

00:06:48.740 –> 00:06:52.920
different factors or elements. Some people might

00:06:52.920 –> 00:06:56.360
call them variables, but these might be factors

00:06:56.360 –> 00:06:59.459
or elements, typically about the external environment.

00:06:59.540 –> 00:07:03.759
So we’re creating stories about what the future

00:07:03.759 –> 00:07:07.759
world out there might look like that an organization

00:07:07.759 –> 00:07:13.939
or a group may have to contend with in their

00:07:13.939 –> 00:07:17.660
work. So I said scenario planning is a methodology

00:07:17.660 –> 00:07:21.339
that develops scenarios and then uses them. So

00:07:21.339 –> 00:07:23.620
I think it’s really helpful to consider those

00:07:23.620 –> 00:07:25.519
two stages when you’re talking about scenario

00:07:25.519 –> 00:07:27.699
planning. It’s not just about creating the stories,

00:07:28.079 –> 00:07:30.579
but about thinking, what do those stories mean

00:07:30.579 –> 00:07:33.920
for us? And one of the key concepts that’s associated

00:07:33.920 –> 00:07:36.740
with scenario planning is the notion of robustness.

00:07:37.519 –> 00:07:42.100
If we are going to plan how our organization

00:07:42.100 –> 00:07:45.500
might develop in the future, and we don’t know

00:07:45.500 –> 00:07:48.699
what that future might be like, then it’s a good

00:07:48.699 –> 00:07:53.779
idea that our plans are robust in that they can

00:07:53.779 –> 00:07:57.240
cope with whatever the future might throw at

00:07:57.240 –> 00:08:00.139
us. And that’s why we develop a set of scenarios

00:08:00.139 –> 00:08:04.199
so that we can test our plans and our thinking

00:08:04.199 –> 00:08:07.959
about the future to check that they can cope

00:08:07.959 –> 00:08:11.560
with a variety of different situations because

00:08:11.560 –> 00:08:13.779
we don’t know which situation will come to pass.

00:08:15.420 –> 00:08:19.319
How’s that? It’s excellent. Anyone want to add

00:08:19.319 –> 00:08:21.620
anything else? I agree with everything. I think

00:08:21.620 –> 00:08:23.399
that’s great. I mean, just a couple of thoughts

00:08:23.399 –> 00:08:25.699
which we may get into. You know, the arguments

00:08:25.699 –> 00:08:28.199
are often made, aren’t they, about the benefits

00:08:28.199 –> 00:08:30.199
of actually engaging in the scenario planning

00:08:30.199 –> 00:08:32.860
and that by considering alternative futures,

00:08:33.019 –> 00:08:36.919
it changes the mindsets of those who participate.

00:08:37.100 –> 00:08:39.159
And to me, that’s always been a very important

00:08:39.159 –> 00:08:41.960
argument. And maybe we’ll get into that as we

00:08:41.960 –> 00:08:46.100
talk about the case study in a bit. Oh, I’m sure

00:08:46.100 –> 00:08:48.980
we will. In fact, I’m sure we’re about to get

00:08:48.980 –> 00:08:54.480
into it right now. So what you bring up, Frances,

00:08:54.600 –> 00:08:58.659
is that scenario planning is a process. It’s

00:08:58.659 –> 00:09:05.940
multi -parts. It’s involved. And it’s about looking

00:09:05.940 –> 00:09:09.440
towards the future. It is, I would say, always,

00:09:09.679 –> 00:09:12.120
or is that what you’re, am I agreeing with you

00:09:12.120 –> 00:09:14.340
on this one, that it’s always about looking towards

00:09:14.340 –> 00:09:19.169
the future? Yeah, good enough. You just challenged

00:09:19.169 –> 00:09:20.610
me by thinking there. I was just thinking, oh,

00:09:20.669 –> 00:09:23.250
that’s an interesting idea. Is it always about

00:09:23.250 –> 00:09:25.750
the future? Might it ever be about the past?

00:09:26.970 –> 00:09:29.509
Can we have uncertainty about the past? There’s

00:09:29.509 –> 00:09:33.389
a question. Spend an hour talking about that

00:09:33.389 –> 00:09:36.389
one. Yeah. An incredible point that is brought

00:09:36.389 –> 00:09:40.169
up by others as well. Taking that into the context

00:09:40.169 –> 00:09:43.279
of your chapter. Your chapter about scenario

00:09:43.279 –> 00:09:47.059
planning at a time of crisis. So something we

00:09:47.059 –> 00:09:52.059
know from the inside, you know the sort of Secret

00:09:52.059 –> 00:09:55.360
conversations we have is that we understand that

00:09:55.360 –> 00:09:59.419
our field becomes exceptionally popular at times

00:09:59.419 –> 00:10:04.279
of crisis compared to before the crisis and as

00:10:04.279 –> 00:10:07.580
well after You know, whatever is assumed to be

00:10:07.580 –> 00:10:12.090
after a crisis So this is the feature you bring

00:10:12.090 –> 00:10:16.629
into your futures and foresight chapter. And

00:10:16.629 –> 00:10:21.009
I’d like to then pass the mic over. I’d like

00:10:21.009 –> 00:10:25.309
to hear your thoughts about the story of crisis

00:10:25.309 –> 00:10:29.389
as a process, as opposed to crisis as an event,

00:10:29.509 –> 00:10:33.610
right? And what it can look like and how it can

00:10:33.610 –> 00:10:36.889
be experienced from our side of the futures thinking.

00:10:38.820 –> 00:10:40.779
Alessandra, would you like to take this one?

00:10:41.240 –> 00:10:43.440
Yeah, absolutely. So there’s a very good point

00:10:43.440 –> 00:10:48.100
and it’s how in our study, in our study we adopted

00:10:48.100 –> 00:10:51.159
this perspective. We adopted the perspective

00:10:51.159 –> 00:10:54.919
that crisis is not a one -off event, but rather

00:10:54.919 –> 00:10:58.779
it’s a process that unfolds over time. with multiple

00:10:58.779 –> 00:11:02.059
faces and multiple decision points. And this

00:11:02.059 –> 00:11:05.679
is particularly relevant for sectors like the

00:11:05.679 –> 00:11:08.519
museums, which is the sector that we are looking

00:11:08.519 –> 00:11:11.860
at in this research, where the effects of a crisis

00:11:11.860 –> 00:11:16.100
such as COVID -19 ripple across funding, across

00:11:16.100 –> 00:11:20.279
staffing, audience engagement and strategic direction.

00:11:21.059 –> 00:11:26.019
So seeing a crisis as a process, allows us to

00:11:26.019 –> 00:11:30.500
move away from the idea of a single shock moment

00:11:30.500 –> 00:11:36.080
and instead allows us to it allows us to focus

00:11:36.080 –> 00:11:40.740
on how leaders can meaningfully intervene throughout

00:11:40.740 –> 00:11:45.299
the life cycle of a crisis. So, for example,

00:11:45.539 –> 00:11:48.000
it’s quite useful for leaders, instead of asking

00:11:48.000 –> 00:11:50.919
how do we recover from the crisis, because we

00:11:50.919 –> 00:11:52.879
can tell that we are always in a crisis, so it’s

00:11:52.879 –> 00:11:56.379
a process. Probably this process -oriented view

00:11:56.379 –> 00:12:00.480
asks how do we understand and act within a crisis

00:12:00.480 –> 00:12:06.899
and as it develops. And this definition of a

00:12:06.899 –> 00:12:09.039
crisis as a process, rather than a one single

00:12:09.039 –> 00:12:13.159
event, was pretty useful for our project on scenario

00:12:13.159 –> 00:12:16.940
planning, because scenario planning, as my colleagues

00:12:16.940 –> 00:12:19.440
Francis and Lauren said, is a process. And exactly

00:12:19.440 –> 00:12:22.440
like the crisis, which is exactly the context

00:12:22.440 –> 00:12:26.740
that we have looked at during our project. OK.

00:12:28.240 –> 00:12:31.720
And to be honest, it almost feels like when we

00:12:31.720 –> 00:12:34.879
look back at these big moments, we talk about

00:12:34.879 –> 00:12:39.919
them through a processional, episodic memory

00:12:39.919 –> 00:12:47.259
retrieval kind of reeling. So crisis as a process.

00:12:49.100 –> 00:12:53.779
Yeah, it brings, and that matches, that really…

00:12:54.440 –> 00:12:57.519
I would say seems to be supported well by something

00:12:57.519 –> 00:13:00.220
like scenario planning, right, which is this

00:13:00.220 –> 00:13:02.659
multi -approach system that looks at a bunch

00:13:02.659 –> 00:13:07.039
of different qualities of the problem. Yeah,

00:13:07.240 –> 00:13:09.740
and if I may, sorry, there’s another point. And

00:13:09.740 –> 00:13:13.100
this framing is also particularly useful because

00:13:13.100 –> 00:13:15.879
this framing as crisis as a process rather than

00:13:15.879 –> 00:13:18.879
a single shot. moment is particularly useful

00:13:18.879 –> 00:13:22.860
because it emphasises that organisations and

00:13:22.860 –> 00:13:26.620
leaders are not just passive victims of external

00:13:26.620 –> 00:13:31.100
shocks. In fact, they are active agents who can

00:13:31.100 –> 00:13:34.419
shape their responses and adjust course and learn

00:13:34.419 –> 00:13:37.000
from what is happening in real time. So having

00:13:37.000 –> 00:13:41.139
this perspective will really shift from an organisation,

00:13:41.240 –> 00:13:46.080
a leader being just a passive victim to be a

00:13:45.820 –> 00:13:50.059
to be actually, in fact, an active agent. Right.

00:13:50.299 –> 00:13:53.860
So that is something that I don’t think we discuss

00:13:53.860 –> 00:13:57.799
much about in that kind of framing. We think,

00:13:57.919 –> 00:14:00.039
understandably so, a lot of our discussions.

00:14:00.730 –> 00:14:03.590
Kind of you know between us but also when we

00:14:03.590 –> 00:14:07.149
talk to the media or talking with a Client when

00:14:07.149 –> 00:14:09.350
we’re you know consulting or anything like that

00:14:09.350 –> 00:14:12.289
is in more simplistic terms like here’s a tool

00:14:12.289 –> 00:14:14.350
It’s gonna do a thing for you at this time But

00:14:14.350 –> 00:14:17.409
what’s really happening is we’re looking at this

00:14:17.409 –> 00:14:20.889
this whole process perspective this whole systems

00:14:20.889 –> 00:14:23.769
perspective and It’s hard to break that down.

00:14:24.090 –> 00:14:26.529
So I do appreciate that. We’re getting a chance

00:14:26.529 –> 00:14:30.820
to share that today now With that said, your

00:14:30.820 –> 00:14:35.259
chapter specifically did look at, it discusses

00:14:35.259 –> 00:14:40.840
a case study, the museum sector, and how COVID

00:14:40.840 –> 00:14:46.000
-19, our most recent pandemic, impacted the sector.

00:14:46.960 –> 00:14:50.299
So would you walk us through that a little bit?

00:14:50.379 –> 00:14:53.629
Give us a little introduction. Yeah, so the pandemic

00:14:53.629 –> 00:14:56.850
created a sudden existential threat to the whole

00:14:56.850 –> 00:14:59.789
sector because the whole sector, like many others,

00:15:00.610 –> 00:15:06.389
was relying on people, on physical programmes

00:15:06.389 –> 00:15:09.870
and exhibitions. So museums were forced to close,

00:15:10.350 –> 00:15:13.850
leading to furloughs, redundancies and total

00:15:13.850 –> 00:15:18.009
disruption to physical programming, which was,

00:15:18.009 –> 00:15:21.250
as it is for some, their main business model.

00:15:21.710 –> 00:15:26.409
And many institutions lacked robust digital infrastructure.

00:15:26.809 –> 00:15:30.909
and were suddenly asked to pivot overnight, that

00:15:30.909 –> 00:15:35.669
was quite challenging. And it wasn’t just about

00:15:35.669 –> 00:15:38.370
putting collections online, so it wasn’t just

00:15:38.370 –> 00:15:42.690
about upload a picture online, it was about rethinking

00:15:42.690 –> 00:15:46.289
what engagement, education or community connection

00:15:46.289 –> 00:15:50.190
could look like in a digital space. It was tremendously

00:15:50.190 –> 00:15:52.629
tough and difficult and challenging for the museum

00:15:52.629 –> 00:15:55.970
sector. And if we think that it’s just… This

00:15:55.970 –> 00:15:59.570
has to be done with very limited time and no

00:15:59.570 –> 00:16:03.490
resources or very limited resources. And also

00:16:03.490 –> 00:16:06.789
the crisis, the COVID -19 and the crisis also

00:16:06.789 –> 00:16:12.370
expose existing inequalities within the sector.

00:16:12.990 –> 00:16:16.409
So if you think about larger museums or larger

00:16:16.409 –> 00:16:19.169
and better -funded museums compared to your smaller

00:16:19.169 –> 00:16:22.509
and local ones. So that was, this is the sex,

00:16:22.649 –> 00:16:26.570
this is the environment where our research fit

00:16:26.570 –> 00:16:34.029
in. So this very, this sex is deeply affected

00:16:34.029 –> 00:16:40.000
from the crisis and COVID -19. Okay, so yeah,

00:16:40.159 –> 00:16:43.940
let’s go even deeper into that then. So here’s

00:16:43.940 –> 00:16:47.299
scenario planning. Some people consider it a

00:16:47.299 –> 00:16:50.320
process, so almost more conceptual. Some people

00:16:50.320 –> 00:16:52.639
consider it a tool. I believe you all speak about

00:16:52.639 –> 00:16:57.799
it a little bit of both in your chapter. Maureen.

00:16:58.740 –> 00:17:01.399
specifically like scenario planning as a tool

00:17:01.399 –> 00:17:04.339
in these times where it’s fast decision making,

00:17:04.920 –> 00:17:08.559
fast changeovers, unexpected changeovers, and

00:17:08.559 –> 00:17:11.420
having hardly a time to sort of stress test,

00:17:11.700 –> 00:17:16.000
you know, a lot of what’s coming. You’re specifically

00:17:16.000 –> 00:17:19.099
a we, but in this situation, you’re specifically

00:17:19.099 –> 00:17:21.440
working with leadership, right? Because they’re

00:17:21.519 –> 00:17:23.519
decision makers, they’re the ones who have the

00:17:23.519 –> 00:17:27.220
final say. So how was scenario planning this

00:17:27.220 –> 00:17:30.680
useful tool with the leadership during COVID?

00:17:32.059 –> 00:17:34.400
Yeah, I mean, I think it was interesting. The

00:17:34.400 –> 00:17:37.059
first thing was that we found people did want

00:17:37.059 –> 00:17:39.240
to talk to us, which wasn’t, you know, would

00:17:39.240 –> 00:17:42.000
not have been obvious at the beginning. This

00:17:42.000 –> 00:17:44.400
was an incredibly stressful time for them, as

00:17:44.400 –> 00:17:47.359
Alessandro’s already said, they, you know, they

00:17:47.359 –> 00:17:50.079
were shut, they had lost all their income streams.

00:17:51.000 –> 00:17:53.900
Staff were furloughed, you know, staff working

00:17:53.900 –> 00:17:56.720
at home trying to figure out, if you remember

00:17:56.720 –> 00:17:58.940
those days, how to use Zoom, how to record a

00:17:58.940 –> 00:18:01.619
podcast, all those things that we became, you

00:18:01.619 –> 00:18:05.299
know, quickly very familiar with. And they really

00:18:05.299 –> 00:18:07.599
wanted to have that conversation because the

00:18:07.599 –> 00:18:09.240
other thing you might remember from those days

00:18:09.240 –> 00:18:13.009
was what is the future going to look like? This

00:18:13.009 –> 00:18:15.309
question, is it going to go back to normal? Or

00:18:15.309 –> 00:18:17.650
everyone was talking about a new normal, right?

00:18:17.710 –> 00:18:22.210
What will the new normal be? And again, in those

00:18:22.210 –> 00:18:24.569
workshops, the managers were saying things like,

00:18:24.990 –> 00:18:27.470
will people want to come back? If we put things

00:18:27.470 –> 00:18:30.890
online, maybe people won’t want to come back

00:18:30.890 –> 00:18:32.930
again into music, which again, sounds a little

00:18:32.930 –> 00:18:35.880
bit crazy. We know that we… a few years on.

00:18:36.019 –> 00:18:38.779
We know that people have gone back, but I guess

00:18:38.779 –> 00:18:42.299
my point is people did want to have those conversations.

00:18:42.759 –> 00:18:46.160
I think it comes back to this notion of crisis.

00:18:46.380 –> 00:18:48.039
Yeah, and I think one definition of crisis is

00:18:48.039 –> 00:18:50.000
the point when you really don’t know what to

00:18:50.000 –> 00:18:54.079
do, right? You’re almost at maximum uncertainty

00:18:54.079 –> 00:18:57.779
and you’re probably stressed and baffled and

00:18:57.779 –> 00:18:59.579
you know really wondering what the right what

00:18:59.579 –> 00:19:02.960
the right route is and so we found the scenario

00:19:02.960 –> 00:19:06.700
process to be a really good one for talking through

00:19:06.700 –> 00:19:09.420
you know obviously what those different futures

00:19:09.420 –> 00:19:12.539
might look like and what they could do starting

00:19:12.539 –> 00:19:14.960
from where they were starting from and it’s worth

00:19:14.960 –> 00:19:16.660
saying that the museums we talked to there was

00:19:16.660 –> 00:19:20.059
a wide range from some large, well -resourced

00:19:20.059 –> 00:19:22.460
institutions that you definitely know the name

00:19:22.460 –> 00:19:26.019
of, through to some little local ones with even

00:19:26.019 –> 00:19:29.519
less resources. So there was a huge worry about

00:19:29.519 –> 00:19:32.319
the right resources and capabilities to respond

00:19:32.319 –> 00:19:36.220
to these challenges. And the scenario process,

00:19:36.339 –> 00:19:38.160
I agree with you, it’s a process and a tool,

00:19:38.319 –> 00:19:41.279
I think, Megan, it really did help. You know,

00:19:41.279 –> 00:19:43.299
I’m interested in how you have a good strategic

00:19:43.299 –> 00:19:45.380
conversation. That’s that’s one of the things

00:19:45.380 –> 00:19:47.140
that, you know, one of the questions that’s run

00:19:47.140 –> 00:19:50.200
through my my research for years. And I felt

00:19:50.200 –> 00:19:53.539
it really did help. Really did help with that.

00:19:55.859 –> 00:20:03.599
Yes. And that that exercise of having not just

00:20:03.599 –> 00:20:07.240
a strategic conversation, which is an entire

00:20:09.390 –> 00:20:13.769
I don’t know, subset, what a conversation can

00:20:13.769 –> 00:20:17.869
even be, but a good, a meaningful strategic conversation,

00:20:18.049 –> 00:20:21.789
right? That is something that’s coming into question

00:20:21.789 –> 00:20:26.799
a lot with a lot of the digital tools. that people

00:20:26.799 –> 00:20:30.099
are trying to use to support scenario planning,

00:20:30.559 –> 00:20:33.920
right? The most obvious one being various AI

00:20:33.920 –> 00:20:37.700
tools is like, okay, what does that mean to the

00:20:37.700 –> 00:20:40.960
strategic conversation that we have assumed in

00:20:40.960 –> 00:20:44.059
the field and in the practice that the study

00:20:44.059 –> 00:20:48.920
of it is a key part of the success, right? Is

00:20:48.920 –> 00:20:54.609
that… Well, one on five, one on seven thousand

00:20:54.609 –> 00:20:57.970
conversations that we have. Right. OK, so you

00:20:57.970 –> 00:21:02.710
had large museums that you were working with.

00:21:02.970 –> 00:21:06.650
So they had and then small local regional, they

00:21:06.650 –> 00:21:09.369
had different budgets, they had different concerns,

00:21:09.609 –> 00:21:12.329
they had similar but different fears. Right.

00:21:13.279 –> 00:21:16.839
And COVID added one more thing to that with this

00:21:16.839 –> 00:21:18.819
ability to have conversations with them, which

00:21:18.819 –> 00:21:21.359
is we had to take a hybrid approach or we had

00:21:21.359 –> 00:21:24.680
to take a fully virtual approach. We had to change

00:21:24.680 –> 00:21:27.880
even the way we approach scenario planning as

00:21:27.880 –> 00:21:30.900
scenario planners. How that worked out for you?

00:21:31.160 –> 00:21:32.660
What were some of the things you took away from

00:21:32.660 –> 00:21:37.940
that? So we did have to run the exercise virtually.

00:21:38.200 –> 00:21:41.099
um we didn’t meet any of these people in person

00:21:41.099 –> 00:21:45.099
until until much later but we we use the word

00:21:45.099 –> 00:21:49.480
hybrid in in the in the chapter because well

00:21:49.480 –> 00:21:51.680
we’re using it in a slightly different way actually

00:21:51.680 –> 00:21:56.200
we’re dealing with the fact that um the participants

00:21:56.200 –> 00:22:00.640
were very time poor um just extremely busy um

00:22:00.640 –> 00:22:03.579
you know as I say stressed short -term future

00:22:04.559 –> 00:22:07.579
the survival of the organisation in some cases,

00:22:07.720 –> 00:22:11.380
you know, it was that bad. And, you know, so

00:22:11.380 –> 00:22:13.839
we worked very hard to get them to engage in

00:22:13.839 –> 00:22:16.019
the workshops. And as I said, they did appreciate

00:22:16.019 –> 00:22:19.079
the conversation. But we’re using hybrid in a

00:22:19.079 –> 00:22:20.819
slightly different sense. I mean, a scenario

00:22:20.819 –> 00:22:23.720
planning exercise can be done in a number of

00:22:23.720 –> 00:22:26.640
ways, right? And the literature often presents

00:22:26.640 –> 00:22:29.220
the ideal way of running a scenario planning

00:22:29.220 –> 00:22:32.400
exercise is to… involve people involve the

00:22:32.400 –> 00:22:34.599
participants right from the beginning right through

00:22:34.599 –> 00:22:38.420
to the end in every step right from brainstorming

00:22:38.420 –> 00:22:41.220
generating scenarios using the scenarios and

00:22:41.220 –> 00:22:43.339
coming up with the strategies and and this whole

00:22:43.339 –> 00:22:46.440
this whole process not every scenario exercise

00:22:46.440 –> 00:22:48.799
is like that francis and i have written about

00:22:48.799 –> 00:22:51.920
scenario use so what it’s like when you get participants

00:22:51.920 –> 00:22:55.160
to engage with set of existing scenarios that

00:22:55.160 –> 00:22:58.259
they haven’t been part of developing and they

00:22:58.259 –> 00:23:02.220
need to orientate themselves sometimes in order

00:23:02.220 –> 00:23:04.559
to use the scenarios effectively you need to

00:23:04.559 –> 00:23:07.700
ground yourself in them. So we were very aware

00:23:07.700 –> 00:23:12.220
of these arguments, you know, ideally you’d get

00:23:12.220 –> 00:23:13.960
people involved throughout the process because

00:23:13.960 –> 00:23:17.000
that’s perhaps how the mindset change happens,

00:23:17.319 –> 00:23:19.980
those arguments about the participants look at

00:23:19.980 –> 00:23:22.339
the world differently even if the scenarios themselves

00:23:22.339 –> 00:23:24.880
they don’t. feel are useful, the processes, right?

00:23:24.920 –> 00:23:26.920
Those kind of arguments. We couldn’t do that.

00:23:26.960 –> 00:23:29.480
We couldn’t do a, you know, a whole day in person

00:23:29.480 –> 00:23:32.680
or, you know, it just wasn’t an option during

00:23:32.680 –> 00:23:36.240
COVID. So Alessandra and I designed a process

00:23:36.240 –> 00:23:39.240
where we ran a couple of workshops upfront, where

00:23:39.240 –> 00:23:42.920
we got them to do brainstorming the elements

00:23:42.920 –> 00:23:46.420
in the external environment. listeners might

00:23:46.420 –> 00:23:48.880
be familiar with PEST, political, economic, social,

00:23:49.079 –> 00:23:51.339
technological, those kinds of frameworks for

00:23:51.339 –> 00:23:53.700
saying what’s going on in the external environment.

00:23:54.059 –> 00:23:57.400
We did that. We then took away all the output

00:23:57.400 –> 00:23:59.960
from those conversations and Alessandro and I

00:23:59.960 –> 00:24:02.920
designed the scenarios and then we ran a second

00:24:02.920 –> 00:24:07.160
set of workshops where the scenarios were used

00:24:07.160 –> 00:24:10.829
and the strategies were developed. it was it

00:24:10.829 –> 00:24:13.950
was this this little bit of a halfway house some

00:24:13.950 –> 00:24:16.390
participants stayed with us they they came to

00:24:16.390 –> 00:24:19.210
one of the first workshops and they came to the

00:24:19.210 –> 00:24:22.730
to the to the scenario use type workshops some

00:24:22.730 –> 00:24:24.769
you know didn’t do the first and did the second

00:24:24.769 –> 00:24:28.529
or or or vice versa so it was a very interesting

00:24:28.529 –> 00:24:30.630
exercise from that point of view it’s often how

00:24:30.630 –> 00:24:32.650
it would happen in an organization by the way

00:24:32.650 –> 00:24:35.109
isn’t it if you’re running a consultancy exercise

00:24:35.109 –> 00:24:37.730
for a company again not everybody can make can

00:24:37.730 –> 00:24:40.779
make every meeting because their busy time for

00:24:40.779 –> 00:24:43.599
managers. So we tried to design the process to

00:24:43.599 –> 00:24:47.880
work in that way entirely online and I think

00:24:47.880 –> 00:24:50.799
by and large it did because when we came to the

00:24:50.799 –> 00:24:53.079
scenario use workshops as we mentioned in the

00:24:53.079 –> 00:24:55.539
chapter people did recognise the people who’d

00:24:55.539 –> 00:24:58.079
been at the earlier workshops were saying you

00:24:58.079 –> 00:25:00.299
know I recognise that I can see you’ve taken

00:25:00.299 –> 00:25:03.000
some of the debates we had at that early workshop

00:25:03.000 –> 00:25:05.619
are reflected in the scenarios and so on. So

00:25:05.619 –> 00:25:09.000
for us it was a It was it was quite an interesting

00:25:09.000 –> 00:25:11.559
exercise that was kind of, as I say, kind of

00:25:11.559 –> 00:25:14.819
a halfway house between the full you’re involved

00:25:14.819 –> 00:25:18.160
from A to Z or just giving you a set of scenarios

00:25:18.160 –> 00:25:20.380
that you haven’t been involved in developing

00:25:20.380 –> 00:25:28.849
at all. Yeah, that was. That is a point of contention

00:25:28.849 –> 00:25:32.210
a lot between us, just as researchers and practitioners.

00:25:32.769 –> 00:25:36.250
You know, do we be dogmatic and have like the

00:25:36.250 –> 00:25:39.029
same, first of all, have a leadership team, you

00:25:39.029 –> 00:25:42.829
know, involved? And do we make them be involved

00:25:42.829 –> 00:25:45.250
the whole time or considered a failure effort?

00:25:45.930 –> 00:25:52.759
Or do we factor in? as the term that I think

00:25:52.759 –> 00:25:57.630
is a great term, time -poor nature. of these

00:25:57.630 –> 00:25:59.930
clients, right? The other point, sorry Megan,

00:25:59.970 –> 00:26:01.750
is of course this wasn’t an exercise for one

00:26:01.750 –> 00:26:05.069
organization. It was for a bunch of museums,

00:26:05.190 –> 00:26:09.130
you know, across the West Midlands. So Alexandra

00:26:09.130 –> 00:26:11.390
and I were not in a position to insist, right,

00:26:11.789 –> 00:26:14.549
and say right, well there wasn’t a senior management,

00:26:14.630 –> 00:26:16.710
there wasn’t a single senior management team

00:26:16.710 –> 00:26:20.750
that we could talk to, you know. Because these

00:26:20.750 –> 00:26:22.589
were like boards, right? I mean museums are run

00:26:22.589 –> 00:26:24.630
by boards and trusts and things of that nature,

00:26:24.630 –> 00:26:27.450
right? So our participants we had some directors,

00:26:27.869 –> 00:26:31.289
some CEOs, some chief operating officers, some

00:26:31.289 –> 00:26:33.970
heads of digital or heads of marketing, you know,

00:26:34.009 –> 00:26:36.910
in some of the small museums, it was only a very

00:26:36.910 –> 00:26:40.289
small senior team anyway, you know, there weren’t

00:26:40.289 –> 00:26:42.930
too many individuals you could reach out to.

00:26:44.009 –> 00:26:46.230
So yeah, that was the level we were aiming at,

00:26:46.470 –> 00:26:48.910
those sort of senior decision makers who were

00:26:48.910 –> 00:26:51.789
interested in strategy and digital going forward.

00:26:52.740 –> 00:26:56.539
Okay. Well, okay. So you then, you know, your

00:26:56.539 –> 00:26:59.539
team, y ‘all bring in something else that’s also,

00:26:59.940 –> 00:27:02.539
at least from my perspective, seemed a little

00:27:02.539 –> 00:27:05.519
different from the norm as well. The way you

00:27:05.519 –> 00:27:08.420
said you did this hybrid approach, you were using

00:27:08.420 –> 00:27:12.920
almost like the crisis of application into being

00:27:12.920 –> 00:27:14.579
flexible and saying, okay, we can have these

00:27:14.579 –> 00:27:16.140
people here and some people there and we’re going

00:27:16.140 –> 00:27:19.279
to do like this stage of scenario and then that

00:27:19.279 –> 00:27:23.950
stage of scenario. use this technique within,

00:27:24.210 –> 00:27:27.630
which is you didn’t make the scenario planning

00:27:27.630 –> 00:27:31.390
about the organizations you were working with.

00:27:31.430 –> 00:27:34.829
You used a fictional museum, right? A fictional

00:27:34.829 –> 00:27:38.930
organization. And I haven’t personally come across

00:27:38.930 –> 00:27:44.009
that outside of when you’re just teaching about

00:27:44.009 –> 00:27:46.490
scenario planning, right? But even then we bring

00:27:46.490 –> 00:27:50.009
in real governments or something, you know, so

00:27:50.009 –> 00:27:52.630
people can do the research. So I would love to

00:27:52.630 –> 00:27:54.769
hear more about that. What was the motivation

00:27:54.769 –> 00:27:57.190
behind it? How did it work out? What was the

00:27:57.190 –> 00:28:02.210
effect of it? Yeah. Yeah. So we created, so we

00:28:02.210 –> 00:28:05.549
broke the rules. but that was a deliberate and

00:28:05.549 –> 00:28:08.069
strategic choice and we’ll explain why. So we

00:28:08.069 –> 00:28:10.950
created this fictional, we call it West Midlands

00:28:10.950 –> 00:28:15.569
Museum, WMM, and they said it was a deliberate

00:28:15.569 –> 00:28:20.269
and strategic choice and the key idea was to

00:28:20.269 –> 00:28:23.690
allow for open and honest reflection across a

00:28:23.690 –> 00:28:26.849
group or diverse institutions without putting

00:28:26.849 –> 00:28:30.210
any one museum or leader under the spotlight.

00:28:31.210 –> 00:28:35.490
So and by using this fictional organisation participants

00:28:35.490 –> 00:28:39.109
could explore difficult scenarios or even complex

00:28:39.109 –> 00:28:42.390
decisions without feeling that they as leaders

00:28:42.390 –> 00:28:45.789
or their organisation organisations were being

00:28:45.789 –> 00:28:50.670
judged and so that was quite powerful because

00:28:50.670 –> 00:28:55.009
that gave them space to reflect critically and

00:28:55.009 –> 00:28:58.589
creatively rather than defensively So, the way

00:28:58.589 –> 00:29:02.029
we created this fictional museum, we ran some

00:29:02.029 –> 00:29:05.890
workshops before to, as Moritz said, we ran this

00:29:05.890 –> 00:29:10.589
pestle analysis and the conversations with the

00:29:10.589 –> 00:29:13.230
organisations, with the leaders, and then we

00:29:13.230 –> 00:29:17.069
analysed the data and we built this fictional

00:29:17.069 –> 00:29:22.089
museum. So, this fictional museum is based on

00:29:22.089 –> 00:29:26.769
what our participants said and is based on the

00:29:26.759 –> 00:29:29.960
two main external variables that, or two external

00:29:29.960 –> 00:29:37.000
factors that the leaders see as an important.

00:29:37.900 –> 00:29:42.819
So, and probably, as I said, there was quite

00:29:42.819 –> 00:29:48.200
a very good exercise because creating this fictional

00:29:48.200 –> 00:29:52.299
organization, because… Using a fictional organisation

00:29:52.299 –> 00:29:56.779
avoided competitiveness, for example, or finger

00:29:56.779 –> 00:29:59.700
-pointing, which can easily emerge in a sector

00:29:59.700 –> 00:30:06.839
-based discussion. So instead of creating this

00:30:06.839 –> 00:30:10.079
safe imaginative space where participants could…

00:30:10.039 –> 00:30:13.599
discuss strategy I could see their organization

00:30:13.599 –> 00:30:17.619
in that in this fictional museum that was quite

00:30:17.619 –> 00:30:23.319
that was quite powerful and so also this exercise

00:30:23.319 –> 00:30:28.430
allowed leaders and museum leaders to test assumptions

00:30:28.430 –> 00:30:31.170
and consider different organisational responses.

00:30:32.690 –> 00:30:36.109
So yeah, as I said, this fictional West Midlands

00:30:36.109 –> 00:30:39.950
Museum, the WMM, allowed for, as I said, honest

00:30:39.950 –> 00:30:43.750
and sector -wide reflection without implicating

00:30:43.750 –> 00:30:48.240
any one institution. And participants could engage

00:30:48.240 –> 00:30:51.500
with the strategy narratives more freely without

00:30:51.500 –> 00:30:55.000
feeling defensive or without feeling too exposed.

00:30:56.559 –> 00:31:01.140
And to be fair, many CEOs, so we run these workshops

00:31:01.140 –> 00:31:06.140
with the CEOs and senior, director of the senior

00:31:06.140 –> 00:31:09.690
management teams. And so they said that… that

00:31:09.690 –> 00:31:14.069
they saw their own organisations reflected in

00:31:14.069 –> 00:31:19.029
our fictional museum and that opened up strategic

00:31:19.029 –> 00:31:26.109
conversations about responses. It works quite

00:31:26.109 –> 00:31:29.250
well and also we had very positive feedback from

00:31:29.250 –> 00:31:31.190
our participants so it wasn’t too far away, it

00:31:31.190 –> 00:31:35.359
wasn’t too far -fetched organisation. If I can

00:31:35.359 –> 00:31:38.000
just add a little bit to that, I mean, I think

00:31:38.000 –> 00:31:43.740
it comes up. It is an important issue, this one,

00:31:43.940 –> 00:31:46.940
because as you say, Megan, scenarios are traditionally

00:31:46.940 –> 00:31:49.079
pictures of the external environment, aren’t

00:31:49.079 –> 00:31:51.579
they? But, you know, it just comes back to that

00:31:51.579 –> 00:31:55.140
crisis situation. I think people were very much

00:31:55.140 –> 00:31:58.740
wanted to talk about. there’s a real sense of

00:31:58.740 –> 00:32:01.500
urgency and a real sense of thinking of being

00:32:01.500 –> 00:32:04.779
constrained by their own lack of resources and

00:32:04.779 –> 00:32:07.480
so purely talking about the external environment

00:32:07.480 –> 00:32:10.640
without talking about how getting quite quickly

00:32:10.640 –> 00:32:13.200
into how they could respond and the constraints

00:32:13.200 –> 00:32:16.660
on their response, you know, that wouldn’t have

00:32:16.660 –> 00:32:19.460
been a useful conversation for them. So we wanted

00:32:19.460 –> 00:32:25.440
to make it as engaging and as plausible as possible

00:32:25.440 –> 00:32:30.920
is how I would. put it, I think. Yeah, that whole

00:32:30.920 –> 00:32:36.660
business of how you create meaningful, engaging,

00:32:37.440 –> 00:32:40.859
relatable, plausible, you could insert any adjective

00:32:40.859 –> 00:32:43.559
there and the scenario literature is full of

00:32:43.559 –> 00:32:45.900
lots of adjectives that says what makes a good

00:32:45.900 –> 00:32:49.690
scenario. But I think, I think One of the points

00:32:49.690 –> 00:32:52.029
that will come out a little bit later as well

00:32:52.029 –> 00:32:56.049
is it’s context dependent. And I think what we’ve

00:32:56.049 –> 00:32:59.369
got a good example here of is how Maureen and

00:32:59.369 –> 00:33:04.589
Alessandro really thought about not following

00:33:04.589 –> 00:33:09.509
some notion of a, you know, on paper scenario

00:33:09.509 –> 00:33:12.670
planning has to be done this way, but they adapted

00:33:12.670 –> 00:33:16.329
it and they modified it to suit the needs of

00:33:16.329 –> 00:33:21.019
the context. and of the stakeholders involved.

00:33:21.200 –> 00:33:24.660
And that’s why they made the choices that they

00:33:24.660 –> 00:33:32.339
did. Yes. Just from a purely selfish point of

00:33:32.339 –> 00:33:35.920
view, I hadn’t planned. I didn’t think y ‘all

00:33:35.920 –> 00:33:37.660
were going to write about this. And when I saw

00:33:37.660 –> 00:33:40.460
it, I was like, heck yes, because we are really

00:33:40.460 –> 00:33:44.559
talking about What are we doing now in this evolution

00:33:44.559 –> 00:33:47.880
of the field compared to where we’ve come from

00:33:47.880 –> 00:33:51.980
in the last 60, 70 years, right? And breaking

00:33:51.980 –> 00:33:56.519
the mold is happening. And I’m wondering, what

00:33:56.519 –> 00:34:00.740
are your thoughts on using this technique outside

00:34:00.740 –> 00:34:05.059
of scenario planning and crisis, right? So day

00:34:05.059 –> 00:34:08.639
-to -day scenario planning. Do you recommend

00:34:08.639 –> 00:34:14.260
this kind of What would you say, third person

00:34:14.260 –> 00:34:18.699
perspective almost in the work? I think there’s

00:34:18.699 –> 00:34:21.159
a lot of different ways. I’ll start, you two

00:34:21.159 –> 00:34:23.559
chip in. I think there’s a lot of different ways

00:34:23.559 –> 00:34:26.760
that you think about how you’re going to present

00:34:26.760 –> 00:34:29.860
your scenarios. And I think this is an area that’s

00:34:29.860 –> 00:34:32.860
really ripe for research. And I don’t see an

00:34:32.860 –> 00:34:37.880
awful lot written about precisely how you present.

00:34:38.300 –> 00:34:41.699
the scenarios and what you populate them with

00:34:41.699 –> 00:34:45.360
beyond the individual factors or variables, whatever

00:34:45.360 –> 00:34:48.079
people call them, that you’ve brainstormed in

00:34:48.079 –> 00:34:52.639
the early part of the process. And I think the

00:34:52.639 –> 00:34:55.719
answer has to be it depends. It depends on other

00:34:55.719 –> 00:34:59.579
things. It depends on who’s involved, the context.

00:35:00.170 –> 00:35:04.050
the time and space and what’s going on around

00:35:04.050 –> 00:35:09.050
you that affects those decisions, as well as

00:35:09.050 –> 00:35:12.909
the purpose. What is the purpose of the exercise?

00:35:13.130 –> 00:35:19.250
And here it was about giving people a tool to,

00:35:21.070 –> 00:35:23.250
I don’t want to say take their minds off the

00:35:23.250 –> 00:35:25.530
immediacy of the thing, but it was almost about

00:35:25.530 –> 00:35:31.349
lifting their heads up and seeing a way into

00:35:31.349 –> 00:35:36.650
a time beyond the crisis. One of the other features

00:35:36.650 –> 00:35:40.909
of this exercise where they broke the rules,

00:35:40.929 –> 00:35:43.429
if you like, was there was no date on the scenario.

00:35:43.610 –> 00:35:45.530
So the scenarios, although they were set in the

00:35:45.530 –> 00:35:49.949
future, they weren’t set at a particular point

00:35:49.949 –> 00:35:54.710
in time or with a particular endpoint trajectory.

00:35:55.230 –> 00:35:57.949
And I think that, again, was another conscious

00:35:57.949 –> 00:36:01.219
decision But that doesn’t mean that they’re not

00:36:01.219 –> 00:36:09.119
scenarios as we would call them, because they

00:36:09.119 –> 00:36:14.099
are clearly descriptions of alternative possible

00:36:14.099 –> 00:36:17.500
futures that describe a different time zone,

00:36:17.780 –> 00:36:19.980
even though they might not describe a particular

00:36:19.980 –> 00:36:25.539
date or, you know. specific years there’s clearly

00:36:25.539 –> 00:36:29.380
a feeling of a different period that these futures

00:36:29.380 –> 00:36:32.460
are set in and again I think that that was a

00:36:32.460 –> 00:36:35.659
conscious decision that was influenced by the

00:36:35.659 –> 00:36:39.289
setting and the people involved. I mean, just

00:36:39.289 –> 00:36:41.909
to add a little bit to that on the timing, you

00:36:41.909 –> 00:36:43.869
know, we’ve probably all met resistance. I know

00:36:43.869 –> 00:36:45.849
working with other groups, I’ve met resistance.

00:36:45.989 –> 00:36:48.210
If you ask them to think too many years out,

00:36:48.530 –> 00:36:50.530
they say, oh, I can’t possibly do that. You know,

00:36:50.849 –> 00:36:53.409
I work in a fast moving industry. I can’t predict

00:36:53.409 –> 00:36:56.190
three months, six months. Don’t ask me to talk

00:36:56.190 –> 00:36:58.110
about it. You know, so we were partly getting

00:36:58.110 –> 00:37:02.050
over that. You know, that there was so much in

00:37:02.050 –> 00:37:06.719
the Covid crisis that we didn’t push them. you

00:37:06.719 –> 00:37:09.199
know, I think five years, 20 years out. But Frances

00:37:09.199 –> 00:37:12.639
is right. We were painting a picture of a world

00:37:12.639 –> 00:37:16.440
beyond the crisis without putting, as Frances

00:37:16.440 –> 00:37:18.460
just pointed out, we didn’t put a number on it,

00:37:18.699 –> 00:37:21.900
but we were still gently getting them to think

00:37:21.900 –> 00:37:25.340
about a world. a time beyond the crisis, which

00:37:25.340 –> 00:37:27.679
again, if you think back to the COVID days, we

00:37:27.679 –> 00:37:29.579
didn’t know how long it was going to take to

00:37:29.579 –> 00:37:32.019
play out, you know, how many lockdowns there

00:37:32.019 –> 00:37:35.739
were going to be, etc. So that was a way of,

00:37:35.739 –> 00:37:38.280
I guess, a way of dealing with that very extreme

00:37:38.280 –> 00:37:43.000
uncertainty, I guess. Right, right. I mean, that

00:37:43.000 –> 00:37:45.099
was some of the work that George and I did. We

00:37:45.099 –> 00:37:49.139
were looking at I could be wrong, but at the

00:37:49.139 –> 00:37:52.480
time we had the largest review of COVID scenarios.

00:37:52.739 –> 00:37:57.420
It was the first half, but it was a monster half

00:37:57.420 –> 00:38:04.860
of 2020. And I mean, people were focused on two

00:38:04.860 –> 00:38:08.590
weeks, two months. you know, you had some, there

00:38:08.590 –> 00:38:11.710
were plenty, you know, in that database that

00:38:11.710 –> 00:38:16.289
went a whole year out. But that short term perspective,

00:38:16.429 –> 00:38:19.750
and it put me in mind of another place where

00:38:19.750 –> 00:38:24.210
the short term and almost like jumping from one.

00:38:26.230 –> 00:38:29.550
anxious, I don’t want to quite call it a crisis,

00:38:29.650 –> 00:38:31.269
but people do talk about it in the exact same

00:38:31.269 –> 00:38:35.550
terms, when scenario planning or forecasting,

00:38:35.929 –> 00:38:37.829
even which is more in that quantitative work,

00:38:38.630 –> 00:38:42.210
is dealing with politics, politicians and policymakers,

00:38:42.429 –> 00:38:46.989
because they are so focused on the election cycle,

00:38:47.230 –> 00:38:51.000
like that’s their time where they… can guarantee

00:38:51.000 –> 00:38:53.019
their ability to do whatever it is they’re trying

00:38:53.019 –> 00:38:55.199
to do, right? Election cycles can be a year and

00:38:55.199 –> 00:38:58.079
a half, you know, or four years. I mean, in the

00:38:58.079 –> 00:39:01.760
US, they’re set in the UK, there are snap elections,

00:39:01.840 –> 00:39:04.400
but that’s that in and of itself is a limiting

00:39:04.400 –> 00:39:06.099
factor, you know, when you’re thinking is like,

00:39:06.099 –> 00:39:10.260
oh, they could call an election anytime. So there’s

00:39:10.260 –> 00:39:13.960
that short term. And I really liked that you

00:39:13.960 –> 00:39:16.969
you tried something different with that. Okay,

00:39:17.190 –> 00:39:19.449
so this is one of the fun things, right, about

00:39:19.449 –> 00:39:22.590
bringing in a case study is you’ve got outcomes.

00:39:22.929 –> 00:39:25.909
That is something researchers like I and many,

00:39:26.150 –> 00:39:29.929
especially in scenario planning, struggle and

00:39:29.929 –> 00:39:33.170
rage against as we don’t get the chance to follow

00:39:33.170 –> 00:39:35.539
up. with a lot of things, it’s a lot of theory

00:39:35.539 –> 00:39:38.500
papers, understandably so, discussion papers,

00:39:38.860 –> 00:39:41.940
review papers, very few empirical papers, but

00:39:41.940 –> 00:39:45.460
the empirical papers are largely often laboratory

00:39:45.460 –> 00:39:49.579
based, right? So we’re testing out very small

00:39:49.579 –> 00:39:52.719
situations. And as Francis said, probably every

00:39:52.719 –> 00:39:56.159
single one of those papers reduces to, it depends,

00:39:57.019 –> 00:39:59.159
it’s so context dependent. And that’s not a bad

00:39:59.159 –> 00:40:01.440
thing, but it’s good to recognize, right? So

00:40:01.440 –> 00:40:04.199
y ‘all had not just one client, you had an industry.

00:40:04.519 –> 00:40:06.679
So I’m going to pass the mic back. I want to

00:40:06.679 –> 00:40:08.940
hear what happened with all these breaking the

00:40:08.940 –> 00:40:13.679
molds and new methods. So shall I talk about

00:40:13.679 –> 00:40:15.420
some of the themes that came out of our data?

00:40:15.719 –> 00:40:18.099
Megan, would that be? Absolutely. Would that

00:40:18.099 –> 00:40:24.380
be useful? So we picked up our two major themes

00:40:24.380 –> 00:40:27.500
and we did what many scenario planners do and

00:40:27.500 –> 00:40:31.030
use those as the two axes that make up they give

00:40:31.030 –> 00:40:38.010
you the four scenarios in the quadrants. So we

00:40:38.010 –> 00:40:40.769
had an awful lot of qualitative data, we analyzed

00:40:40.769 –> 00:40:42.869
and transcribed, we transcribed and analyzed

00:40:42.869 –> 00:40:47.969
all the sessions that we did. And the first big

00:40:47.969 –> 00:40:50.369
theme that we kept coming back to, we summarized

00:40:50.369 –> 00:40:53.340
as digital is about people. And what did what

00:40:53.340 –> 00:40:56.579
did we mean by that? The museums were sort of

00:40:56.579 –> 00:40:59.500
obsessed with their audiences, their visitors,

00:40:59.860 –> 00:41:03.019
the needs and the wants of those audiences, you

00:41:03.019 –> 00:41:06.699
know, where. Were people going to enjoy digital

00:41:06.699 –> 00:41:09.139
activities? Were they going to enjoy them so

00:41:09.139 –> 00:41:10.599
much that they’d never come back through the

00:41:10.599 –> 00:41:12.960
door of a museum again? Or was there going to

00:41:12.960 –> 00:41:15.840
be some future where they were, you know, doing

00:41:15.840 –> 00:41:18.900
both? So we talked an awful lot about that, about

00:41:18.900 –> 00:41:21.019
how they were going to serve their audiences

00:41:21.019 –> 00:41:24.119
in a digital world post -COVID and what, you

00:41:24.119 –> 00:41:26.360
know, what a hybrid strategy in the sense of

00:41:26.360 –> 00:41:29.159
a mix of digital and in -person might look like.

00:41:29.360 –> 00:41:32.519
And it was also interesting talking to these

00:41:32.519 –> 00:41:35.110
museum specialists, just how rooted in people

00:41:35.110 –> 00:41:38.710
and stories they were. So they saw museums, not

00:41:38.710 –> 00:41:42.130
as a building with objects in it, they saw museums

00:41:42.130 –> 00:41:45.309
as all about engagement, all about dialogue,

00:41:45.550 –> 00:41:47.690
all about their local communities and telling

00:41:47.690 –> 00:41:51.150
stories and so on. So there was a very much people

00:41:51.150 –> 00:41:54.469
-driven account of their purpose and why they

00:41:54.469 –> 00:41:56.789
were there, what their strategy should be. So

00:41:56.789 –> 00:41:59.570
that was really the first thing. And the second

00:41:59.570 –> 00:42:03.289
one, we summed up as digital is not free. So

00:42:03.289 –> 00:42:05.849
we’ve already said that these organisations are

00:42:05.849 –> 00:42:09.690
typically, they’re not well resourced. Some of

00:42:09.690 –> 00:42:12.329
the big museums might be more so, but many are

00:42:12.329 –> 00:42:14.230
not. Many are really struggling. They’re operating

00:42:14.230 –> 00:42:18.590
on really tight budgets. And while they wanted

00:42:18.590 –> 00:42:22.599
to go down a digital route, there was a cost

00:42:22.599 –> 00:42:26.440
associated with that and they were very interested

00:42:26.440 –> 00:42:28.860
in what the funding landscape would look like

00:42:28.860 –> 00:42:32.380
in the future. um as well because they felt that

00:42:32.380 –> 00:42:34.860
many of the traditional funders in this space

00:42:34.860 –> 00:42:38.679
funded based on visitor numbers you know it literally

00:42:38.679 –> 00:42:41.139
had to be you know bums on seats as they as it

00:42:41.139 –> 00:42:43.360
were people coming through the door and they

00:42:43.360 –> 00:42:45.260
were saying well how’s that going to work in

00:42:45.260 –> 00:42:47.420
a in a you know if we go more further down the

00:42:47.420 –> 00:42:50.159
digital route maybe we’re really great on tiktok

00:42:50.159 –> 00:42:51.960
and we’ve got millions of followers on tiktok

00:42:51.960 –> 00:42:55.739
but what does that do to our funding streams

00:42:55.739 –> 00:42:58.599
as well so very concerned about the cost of digital

00:42:58.599 –> 00:43:01.880
and very concerned about what the funding landscape

00:43:01.880 –> 00:43:04.280
for them looked like in the future in terms of

00:43:04.280 –> 00:43:09.480
just winning resources for their digital activities.

00:43:09.980 –> 00:43:11.840
So those were the two big themes that we summed

00:43:11.840 –> 00:43:14.139
up. Digital is about people and digital isn’t

00:43:14.139 –> 00:43:20.400
free. Yeah, I’m just trying to think where else

00:43:20.400 –> 00:43:24.019
you took that. So you had this new space. So

00:43:24.019 –> 00:43:28.880
how did Your clients or your participants, um,

00:43:29.059 –> 00:43:30.699
I think i’ve been referring to them as clients

00:43:30.699 –> 00:43:32.400
and you’ve been referring to them as participants

00:43:32.400 –> 00:43:35.400
But how do they like, you know balance this need

00:43:35.400 –> 00:43:39.880
for digital innovation? With their concerns about

00:43:39.880 –> 00:43:42.559
the funding and the resources and and and from

00:43:42.559 –> 00:43:45.059
and I even showed you a mic earlier I had right.

00:43:45.059 –> 00:43:47.659
That was my covet mic. I only had that one because

00:43:47.659 –> 00:43:50.320
it was the only one left in the only and all

00:43:50.320 –> 00:43:52.960
the electronic stores in the in the area it was

00:43:52.960 –> 00:43:55.420
it and and i was shamed for even walking into

00:43:55.420 –> 00:43:59.039
the store fair enough i get it but like yeah

00:43:59.039 –> 00:44:01.659
i mean there was there was constraints beyond

00:44:01.659 –> 00:44:04.639
constraints on so many levels so how’d that go

00:44:04.639 –> 00:44:08.039
how’d they how’d they deal with that yeah that’s

00:44:08.039 –> 00:44:11.739
uh as i said balancing the need for digital innovation

00:44:11.739 –> 00:44:16.469
with concerns about funding and resource constraints.

00:44:17.190 –> 00:44:21.570
That was a struggle, that was a constant tension.

00:44:24.170 –> 00:44:26.670
And indeed this balancing innovation, digital

00:44:26.670 –> 00:44:29.449
innovation with limited resources, was one of

00:44:29.449 –> 00:44:34.360
the most pressing challenges. Participants or

00:44:34.360 –> 00:44:37.679
clients, participants were pretty candid about

00:44:37.679 –> 00:44:40.579
their financial constraints facing the sector.

00:44:41.500 –> 00:44:45.219
Some museums, many museums were still struggling

00:44:45.219 –> 00:44:49.480
with basic operational costs. And we know digital

00:44:49.480 –> 00:44:53.440
strategies often require significant upfront

00:44:53.440 –> 00:44:55.880
investments and many museums weren’t ready to

00:44:55.880 –> 00:44:59.800
do that. Weren’t not ready, not just from a cognitive

00:44:59.800 –> 00:45:03.139
point of view, what I mean by that, they They

00:45:03.139 –> 00:45:07.360
were too scared to invest in that, but some museums

00:45:07.360 –> 00:45:09.860
were not ready from a financial point of view.

00:45:10.239 –> 00:45:13.719
They didn’t have sufficient budget, sufficient

00:45:13.719 –> 00:45:19.320
money to invest in this new world. However, there

00:45:19.320 –> 00:45:23.320
was a broad agreement that digital innovation

00:45:23.320 –> 00:45:26.380
was no longer optional. So there was the majority

00:45:26.380 –> 00:45:30.300
of our participants saying that digital innovation

00:45:30.300 –> 00:45:33.780
is not luxury, it’s not a luxury, it’s actually

00:45:33.780 –> 00:45:39.239
it needs to be central. So leaders spoke about

00:45:39.239 –> 00:45:42.800
needing to be pragmatic and finding good enough

00:45:42.800 –> 00:45:46.679
solutions, for example experimenting with affordable

00:45:46.679 –> 00:45:52.280
tools and pursuing collaborations with mainly

00:45:52.280 –> 00:45:55.440
external partners to stretch capacity. So the

00:45:55.440 –> 00:45:59.659
pandemic and the COVID -19 was actually for many

00:45:59.659 –> 00:46:03.579
like an opportunity, an opportunity to experiment

00:46:03.579 –> 00:46:07.119
and try new collaborations exactly to balance

00:46:07.119 –> 00:46:12.300
these constraints, the balance between the need

00:46:12.300 –> 00:46:15.360
for digital innovation and resource constraints.

00:46:17.000 –> 00:46:21.039
And since some museums began rethinking what

00:46:21.039 –> 00:46:24.260
constitutes value, for example, in a museum context,

00:46:25.219 –> 00:46:28.880
recognizing, for example, that digital engagement,

00:46:29.239 –> 00:46:33.639
even if imperfect, could create meaningful experiences

00:46:33.639 –> 00:46:36.940
also for well -being, mental well -being, and

00:46:36.940 –> 00:46:40.280
especially for audiences who cannot or may not

00:46:40.280 –> 00:46:43.710
or might not. return on site for different reasons.

00:46:44.650 –> 00:46:47.630
So there was the emphasis shifted from perfection

00:46:47.630 –> 00:46:52.710
of digital innovation to progress. And of course,

00:46:53.030 –> 00:46:57.909
the concerns about the affordability of digital

00:46:57.909 –> 00:47:01.750
actions as a result of digital strategies was

00:47:01.750 –> 00:47:07.900
present. Yeah, so just to finish on this, as

00:47:07.900 –> 00:47:12.059
it says, they advocated for digital to be central

00:47:12.059 –> 00:47:16.039
rather than a luxury for their organization and

00:47:16.039 –> 00:47:23.199
then for the sector. Okay. Now, as we’ve come

00:47:23.199 –> 00:47:26.559
to experience, you know, sort of proof of concept

00:47:26.559 –> 00:47:31.500
here is we’ve really embraced that digital space

00:47:31.500 –> 00:47:35.440
now and that digital the digital ways of doing

00:47:35.440 –> 00:47:38.199
things, and a lot of companies have responded

00:47:38.199 –> 00:47:43.980
to streamline that. Streamlining being another

00:47:43.980 –> 00:47:47.739
way of making it cheaper and easier. But yeah,

00:47:47.780 –> 00:47:52.179
yeah. And we see AI sneaking into it now as part

00:47:52.179 –> 00:47:57.630
of this digital support space. And again, just

00:47:57.630 –> 00:48:00.130
to say there was a huge spectrum. I think, you

00:48:00.130 –> 00:48:02.110
know, some of the smaller museums that we dealt

00:48:02.110 –> 00:48:05.449
with, they were doing very little on digital

00:48:05.449 –> 00:48:08.789
before COVID. You know, even their website was

00:48:08.789 –> 00:48:10.849
pretty bad, let’s say the website was a place

00:48:10.849 –> 00:48:13.170
you might go to check opening times or something,

00:48:13.349 –> 00:48:16.389
plan your visit. And that was about it, you know,

00:48:16.489 –> 00:48:18.170
through to a whole range of some of the bigger

00:48:18.170 –> 00:48:20.610
museums who were doing really exciting things

00:48:20.610 –> 00:48:23.550
with, I don’t know, virtual tours, even, you

00:48:23.550 –> 00:48:28.369
know, virtual reality for school. and all kinds

00:48:28.369 –> 00:48:34.550
of things. So it really did come back to them

00:48:34.550 –> 00:48:37.969
building, we found building some of their resources

00:48:37.969 –> 00:48:41.829
and their capabilities and taking the next step,

00:48:42.510 –> 00:48:47.010
trying some different approaches based on the

00:48:47.010 –> 00:48:48.889
resources and capabilities that they could muster

00:48:48.889 –> 00:48:55.369
at the time. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You have me

00:48:55.369 –> 00:48:56.869
thinking about all these new things I’ve been

00:48:56.869 –> 00:49:02.010
doing. Yeah, a lot of the websites absolutely

00:49:02.010 –> 00:49:08.090
got bumped up in quality and information at the

00:49:08.090 –> 00:49:11.269
UX, UI designs, all that good stuff. A lot of

00:49:11.269 –> 00:49:15.389
that was considered luxuries. These were technologies

00:49:15.389 –> 00:49:26.269
of luxury. But the luxury technologies are often

00:49:26.269 –> 00:49:31.619
coded for accessibility. And that accessibility

00:49:31.619 –> 00:49:35.539
is often relegated to the luxury space. So you

00:49:35.539 –> 00:49:39.079
need a lot of money. You need to be well -backed.

00:49:39.139 –> 00:49:41.159
You need to be well -informed in order to get

00:49:41.159 –> 00:49:43.559
all this. And now this knockoff effect of all

00:49:43.559 –> 00:49:47.480
these things is people are having access in ways

00:49:47.480 –> 00:49:52.000
that didn’t before and are able to have more

00:49:52.000 –> 00:49:55.500
meaningful, hopefully, exciting experiences for

00:49:55.500 –> 00:49:58.539
it. I’d just add one thing to that would be about

00:49:58.539 –> 00:50:01.360
the the relationship with schools though Megan

00:50:01.360 –> 00:50:03.900
between um because a very important audience

00:50:03.900 –> 00:50:07.579
for museums is school visits um and that’s the

00:50:07.579 –> 00:50:10.719
name Kim Stream for them and so on and so they

00:50:10.719 –> 00:50:13.880
started you know Covid came schools couldn’t

00:50:13.880 –> 00:50:15.579
come and clearly couldn’t come and visit you

00:50:15.579 –> 00:50:17.880
had staff at home so they were trying simple

00:50:17.880 –> 00:50:19.360
things to start with they were saying let’s do

00:50:19.360 –> 00:50:21.909
a zoom lecture you know, which will be available

00:50:21.909 –> 00:50:25.369
to the school kids. That worked okay for a little

00:50:25.369 –> 00:50:28.449
while, but we all got sick of Zoom pretty quickly,

00:50:28.550 –> 00:50:31.429
if you remember, you know, we’re spending too

00:50:31.429 –> 00:50:34.230
many hours on. So some of them were, again, were

00:50:34.230 –> 00:50:36.929
innovating and it was the mixture between the

00:50:36.929 –> 00:50:38.630
digital and the physical that was quite nice.

00:50:38.630 –> 00:50:40.650
So some of the museums started putting together

00:50:40.650 –> 00:50:43.349
a box with some of the items from the museum

00:50:43.349 –> 00:50:46.030
in which could go out and, you know, when kids

00:50:46.030 –> 00:50:47.889
could come back to school or some of the kids

00:50:47.889 –> 00:50:50.170
who were in school because their parents or key

00:50:50.170 –> 00:50:52.309
workers, they could interact with objects from

00:50:52.309 –> 00:50:58.809
the museum in a box alongside some sort of online

00:50:58.809 –> 00:51:04.050
activity. So it’s sort of thinking, it’s not

00:51:04.050 –> 00:51:08.199
just about taking. what was done in person and

00:51:08.199 –> 00:51:10.219
putting it online, you know, in some of the museums.

00:51:10.340 –> 00:51:12.800
I think Alex referred earlier to taking photos

00:51:12.800 –> 00:51:14.739
of all the objects and putting them on the website.

00:51:14.860 –> 00:51:17.960
You know, it’s thinking beyond that, isn’t it?

00:51:18.059 –> 00:51:20.059
What else, you know, what else can we do? What

00:51:20.059 –> 00:51:25.440
else can the digital world allow us to do? And

00:51:25.440 –> 00:51:28.519
that’s shaken up the relationship between museums

00:51:28.519 –> 00:51:31.820
and schools as well, we think. Well, that’s excellent.

00:51:32.489 –> 00:51:34.070
I love hearing that. This is what I love about

00:51:34.070 –> 00:51:37.010
case studies. We get to hear all the actual outcomes

00:51:37.010 –> 00:51:40.190
that happened. Okay, so I know we’re running

00:51:40.190 –> 00:51:42.409
short on time. We’ve probably gone over time,

00:51:42.610 –> 00:51:45.250
which is always, I find that a good thing. We’re

00:51:45.250 –> 00:51:46.829
just having a good conversation about stuff.

00:51:47.630 –> 00:51:50.250
But I do, there’s one question I really, really

00:51:50.250 –> 00:51:54.489
did want to make sure we had time for. And it’s

00:51:54.489 –> 00:51:57.880
from everything that y ‘all. been talking about,

00:51:58.280 –> 00:52:00.559
you know, you learned, you broke some molds,

00:52:00.760 –> 00:52:03.480
you tried some new stuff, you brought in experimentation,

00:52:04.159 –> 00:52:07.000
you brought in this third party kind of perspective,

00:52:07.099 –> 00:52:08.860
you brought in all these things, and you got

00:52:08.860 –> 00:52:10.699
to work with a lot of clients at the same time,

00:52:10.780 –> 00:52:14.440
a lot of organizations. So, but that was within

00:52:14.440 –> 00:52:18.070
that industry, right? Are there, and I bet there

00:52:18.070 –> 00:52:22.690
are, are there broader lessons that you can tell

00:52:22.690 –> 00:52:26.150
us about that other industries could learn from

00:52:26.150 –> 00:52:29.650
this case study about using scenario planning

00:52:29.650 –> 00:52:35.719
during a crisis? I’ll start here. I think the

00:52:35.719 –> 00:52:39.639
first thing that you have to do whenever you

00:52:39.639 –> 00:52:42.519
want to use scenario planning is you have to

00:52:42.519 –> 00:52:44.960
understand what you’re dealing with. So you have

00:52:44.960 –> 00:52:49.440
to understand the background context to what’s

00:52:49.440 –> 00:52:52.380
going on. So here, we had the background context

00:52:52.380 –> 00:52:57.670
was COVID had shut down. the museums and it had

00:52:57.670 –> 00:53:03.010
created a time of crisis and that had several

00:53:03.010 –> 00:53:07.949
implications. That meant that the various participants

00:53:07.949 –> 00:53:10.510
were not only time poor, they were quite anxious,

00:53:10.570 –> 00:53:14.809
they were very focused on the here and now and

00:53:14.809 –> 00:53:18.269
it was in thinking how can we use scenario planning

00:53:18.269 –> 00:53:22.880
to support this particular or these particular

00:53:22.880 –> 00:53:26.539
circumstances that led to the process that was

00:53:26.539 –> 00:53:29.219
actually deployed. And I think that’s the biggest

00:53:29.219 –> 00:53:32.019
lesson for me that, or if you like, the first

00:53:32.019 –> 00:53:35.539
lesson that is the takeaway is that that really

00:53:35.539 –> 00:53:39.469
needs to be upfront in any. any scenario processes.

00:53:39.650 –> 00:53:41.510
What is it all about? You know, what are we trying

00:53:41.510 –> 00:53:44.130
to do here? What is the purpose? And that reminds

00:53:44.130 –> 00:53:46.550
me of some of the stuff I read of, you know,

00:53:46.630 –> 00:53:48.550
from Case van der Heijden. He was really big

00:53:48.550 –> 00:53:51.829
on purposeful scenario planning. And so I think

00:53:51.829 –> 00:53:55.070
that’s really the starting point in terms of

00:53:55.070 –> 00:53:58.110
lessons to take away. There’s various things

00:53:58.110 –> 00:54:01.329
that were tried. So it wasn’t a question of you

00:54:01.329 –> 00:54:04.130
take the methodology and the tool out of the

00:54:04.130 –> 00:54:07.269
box and then you churn the handle as if you were

00:54:07.179 –> 00:54:11.539
making sausages or something it’s very much understanding

00:54:11.539 –> 00:54:15.320
the different aspects of the scenario process

00:54:15.320 –> 00:54:17.800
and thinking well if we’ve got really time poor

00:54:17.800 –> 00:54:22.119
people which bits do we really need them to engage

00:54:22.119 –> 00:54:25.619
in and which bits could we take away and and

00:54:25.619 –> 00:54:27.579
develop ourselves so I think there’s there’s

00:54:27.579 –> 00:54:31.199
a whole load of questions that start from that

00:54:31.199 –> 00:54:36.860
purposeful reflection. that can be taken away.

00:54:37.300 –> 00:54:39.900
Let me stop there and see whether Maureen or

00:54:39.900 –> 00:54:43.699
Alessandro want to chip in and take any of those

00:54:43.699 –> 00:54:46.719
points or bring in some other points. I was just

00:54:46.719 –> 00:54:50.099
going to say this idea of creating the fictional

00:54:50.099 –> 00:54:54.059
organisation. I don’t think I’d do that if I

00:54:54.059 –> 00:54:56.460
was working for one client. I can’t imagine that

00:54:56.460 –> 00:54:58.380
working with one client, but obviously with the

00:54:58.380 –> 00:55:01.760
sectoral perspective, I think that was a way

00:55:01.760 –> 00:55:04.239
of solving that. problem because working with

00:55:04.239 –> 00:55:07.179
quite such a range of clients is quite a challenge

00:55:07.179 –> 00:55:09.360
you know they were in they’re all facing this

00:55:09.360 –> 00:55:13.719
crisis but they were they were in very different

00:55:13.719 –> 00:55:17.699
positions so so yeah that was that was that was

00:55:17.699 –> 00:55:21.119
one point I wanted to make it could that notion

00:55:21.119 –> 00:55:24.000
of the fictional organization could work in other

00:55:24.000 –> 00:55:26.079
situations where you’ve got multiple clients

00:55:26.079 –> 00:55:34.059
or or an industry or an industry there. and again

00:55:34.059 –> 00:55:37.820
just on that point of having a fictional organisation

00:55:37.820 –> 00:55:41.239
in the scenarios and again a purist would say

00:55:41.239 –> 00:55:43.739
you know the organisation shouldn’t be in the

00:55:43.739 –> 00:55:48.760
scenario. I think what One of the things that

00:55:48.760 –> 00:55:51.059
frustrates me with some scenario exercises is

00:55:51.059 –> 00:55:53.300
you have beautiful scenarios that are not used,

00:55:53.679 –> 00:55:56.940
right, so it comes back to Frances’s purposeful

00:55:56.940 –> 00:56:00.800
point. It’s a tool for use, it’s a process to

00:56:00.800 –> 00:56:05.260
take people through and I think if you, if by

00:56:05.260 –> 00:56:08.699
putting an organization in the scenarios, you

00:56:08.699 –> 00:56:11.780
make the use aspects of it clearer because you’re

00:56:11.780 –> 00:56:15.659
actually talking about, you know, the strategies

00:56:15.659 –> 00:56:18.360
that the organization is choosing and the resources

00:56:18.360 –> 00:56:20.239
and the capabilities that it does or doesn’t

00:56:20.239 –> 00:56:22.300
have. So for me, I suppose I’m sort of saying

00:56:22.300 –> 00:56:25.320
it’s a price worth paying, right? You bend the

00:56:25.320 –> 00:56:30.500
rules in order to make the use aspects of the

00:56:30.500 –> 00:56:34.260
scenario work better. I hope that makes sense.

00:56:35.610 –> 00:56:39.110
And just to add, I know that my colleagues already

00:56:39.110 –> 00:56:46.289
had much. So the broader lesson, one broader

00:56:46.289 –> 00:56:48.269
lesson, and now one additional broader lesson

00:56:48.269 –> 00:56:51.510
is this study shows that scenario planning is

00:56:51.510 –> 00:56:54.929
not just about long -term futures. So in terms

00:56:54.929 –> 00:56:58.929
of in times of disruption or crisis, scenario

00:56:58.929 –> 00:57:03.269
planning can help organizations to shift from

00:57:03.760 –> 00:57:07.820
from reactive responses to proactive strategies,

00:57:09.139 –> 00:57:12.659
even between uncertainty, even amid uncertainty.

00:57:13.940 –> 00:57:17.329
So that’s one point. And the second is Scenario

00:57:17.329 –> 00:57:20.210
planning during a crisis must be responsive to

00:57:20.210 –> 00:57:24.010
participants’ lived experiences or lived realities.

00:57:24.329 –> 00:57:27.670
So that’s why we run workshops before that. And

00:57:27.670 –> 00:57:32.210
it needs to be faster and probably more focused

00:57:32.210 –> 00:57:36.989
than action -oriented. So that’s probably the

00:57:36.989 –> 00:57:41.550
two broader lessons that other industries can

00:57:41.550 –> 00:57:46.880
learn from this study. OK. Something else we

00:57:46.880 –> 00:57:49.000
were doing with the scenarios, I think, was challenging

00:57:49.000 –> 00:57:52.820
the functional silos, just to say. So, but a

00:57:52.820 –> 00:57:57.380
lot of the, for a lot of the participants, they

00:57:57.380 –> 00:57:59.619
would say that in their museums, digital was

00:57:59.619 –> 00:58:01.599
something, it was a certain person’s problem,

00:58:01.860 –> 00:58:03.820
you know, so digital is in the IT department,

00:58:04.519 –> 00:58:07.380
or digital’s in marketing, you know, they’re

00:58:07.380 –> 00:58:09.639
trying to sell tickets or do a bit of social

00:58:09.639 –> 00:58:12.000
media or something. And one of the things that

00:58:12.000 –> 00:58:16.480
very very strongly came out of this as a strategic

00:58:16.480 –> 00:58:19.420
conversation is digital has to be a golden thread

00:58:19.420 –> 00:58:21.300
that runs through the whole organisation, you

00:58:21.300 –> 00:58:23.559
know, your digital strategy isn’t a separate

00:58:23.559 –> 00:58:27.980
strategy, it is part of the strategy, you know.

00:58:29.480 –> 00:58:32.559
It has to be absolutely integrated into everything

00:58:32.559 –> 00:58:36.119
that the organization’s doing. And yeah, so I

00:58:36.119 –> 00:58:37.719
think that was an important learning and something

00:58:37.719 –> 00:58:40.579
that came out very strongly from the conversations

00:58:40.579 –> 00:58:44.320
with the museum leaders. Yeah, that’s something

00:58:44.320 –> 00:58:47.639
you see pop up in a, and maybe this is what they

00:58:47.639 –> 00:58:49.619
mean when they talk about whole systems thinking,

00:58:50.260 –> 00:58:53.920
you know, we get to think about. the entire organization

00:58:53.920 –> 00:58:56.880
and the environment and the stakeholders, all

00:58:56.880 –> 00:58:59.619
of it. But yes, Frances, I think I cut you off

00:58:59.619 –> 00:59:03.280
earlier. No, no, no, you’re OK. I was going to

00:59:03.280 –> 00:59:08.860
just bring in the time horizon bit and just say,

00:59:09.219 –> 00:59:12.440
if that is proving a barrier in your exercise,

00:59:12.579 –> 00:59:14.849
then why do you need to put a date on it? Because

00:59:14.849 –> 00:59:17.869
what you are creating is images of a different

00:59:17.869 –> 00:59:22.070
time. And if there is a sense that here there

00:59:22.070 –> 00:59:25.489
was clearly a zone of crisis which was whilst

00:59:25.489 –> 00:59:28.989
the pandemic lasted, but then there was clearly

00:59:28.989 –> 00:59:33.090
a time beyond that that the scenarios were set

00:59:33.090 –> 00:59:36.530
in. So would a time horizon on that have really

00:59:36.530 –> 00:59:40.050
been helpful? We don’t know how long the crisis

00:59:40.050 –> 00:59:46.360
was going to last. So I think that’s an interesting

00:59:46.360 –> 00:59:49.539
notion to take away is that scenario planning

00:59:49.539 –> 00:59:53.760
is a very, well, there isn’t one scenario planning

00:59:53.760 –> 00:59:58.360
method. I think that’s one thing that it’s really

00:59:58.360 –> 01:00:00.559
important to understand is that there are many

01:00:00.559 –> 01:00:02.599
different approaches to doing scenario planning

01:00:02.599 –> 01:00:05.500
as there are practitioners doing it, really.

01:00:05.679 –> 01:00:08.320
I mean, there might well be schools where different

01:00:08.320 –> 01:00:11.820
processes share things in common. But there are

01:00:11.820 –> 01:00:15.679
a huge variety of different processes out there.

01:00:15.699 –> 01:00:18.119
So if I were talking to people who were thinking

01:00:18.119 –> 01:00:21.840
about designing a scenario process, this notion

01:00:21.840 –> 01:00:25.420
that you can mix and match, that you can challenge

01:00:25.420 –> 01:00:28.539
preconceived ideas about what a scenario process

01:00:28.539 –> 01:00:33.400
has to look like is very much something to be

01:00:33.400 –> 01:00:45.460
encouraged. To end, everybody gets this question,

01:00:46.019 –> 01:00:50.300
because mostly I’m excited. I like to hear what

01:00:50.300 –> 01:00:52.539
everybody has to say, but I think it’s like one

01:00:52.539 –> 01:00:55.059
of the things we’re really good at answering

01:00:55.059 –> 01:01:00.460
in a really exciting way. What trends are you

01:01:00.460 –> 01:01:04.739
seeing in your area of work right now? I think

01:01:04.739 –> 01:01:08.320
one of the biggest ones, the most obvious ones

01:01:08.320 –> 01:01:12.530
is the impact of AI. Gen AI, you know, how does

01:01:12.530 –> 01:01:15.150
that, how can that be brought into scenarios?

01:01:15.570 –> 01:01:19.969
Is it a replacement for humans? Is it a support

01:01:19.969 –> 01:01:23.789
for humans? What role does AI have to play in

01:01:23.789 –> 01:01:25.530
the development of scenarios? I think that’s

01:01:25.530 –> 01:01:27.630
a really exciting topic which some people are

01:01:27.630 –> 01:01:31.269
already exploring in our field but I think that

01:01:31.269 –> 01:01:35.429
one’s ripe for further development. I think I’d

01:01:35.429 –> 01:01:40.760
just say One of the things that I think managers,

01:01:41.079 –> 01:01:43.239
decision makers are wrestling with, it’s an obvious

01:01:43.239 –> 01:01:46.139
one, but it’s speed of change and volatility

01:01:46.139 –> 01:01:50.880
and extreme uncertainty, isn’t it, across so

01:01:50.880 –> 01:01:58.079
many fronts. Methods like scenario planning are

01:01:58.079 –> 01:02:00.880
sometimes put in the box of, you know, some of

01:02:00.880 –> 01:02:03.079
your old -fashioned strategic planning methods

01:02:03.079 –> 01:02:06.900
that are too slow, too rigid and not going to

01:02:06.900 –> 01:02:13.840
help in situations of rapid change and great

01:02:13.840 –> 01:02:18.199
volatility, right? And I think I think they can

01:02:18.199 –> 01:02:20.679
and I think researchers in our space are thinking

01:02:20.679 –> 01:02:24.199
about, you know, scenario planning in different

01:02:24.199 –> 01:02:26.480
contexts. As Frances said earlier, it’s all about

01:02:26.480 –> 01:02:29.019
the context, isn’t it? And taking an outline

01:02:29.019 –> 01:02:33.559
of a method and adapting to situations of rapid

01:02:33.559 –> 01:02:37.260
change, situations of high volatility, that sort

01:02:37.260 –> 01:02:40.139
of thing. So I think those conversations are

01:02:40.139 –> 01:02:42.420
happening and I’m really excited to see what

01:02:42.420 –> 01:02:48.039
comes out of that. two things probably one is

01:02:48.039 –> 01:02:51.139
the the cognitive we talked about cognitive or

01:02:51.139 –> 01:02:54.719
cognition psychology and it’s something that

01:02:54.719 –> 01:02:57.119
i’m quite passionate about is the cognition or

01:02:57.119 –> 01:03:00.179
how directors think and i think scenario planning

01:03:00.179 –> 01:03:04.980
can be a tool a rule tool for them to think strategically

01:03:04.980 –> 01:03:09.199
and so to be more to be more precise so in my

01:03:09.199 –> 01:03:11.949
view something that we not talk talk about enough

01:03:11.949 –> 01:03:15.449
is the cognitive load on leaders and teams navigating

01:03:15.449 –> 01:03:17.989
this transformation, these changes, this crisis.

01:03:20.300 –> 01:03:23.860
So there’s a lot of emphasis of tools or platforms

01:03:23.860 –> 01:03:28.340
or outputs, but not much on thinking space or

01:03:28.340 –> 01:03:34.480
how we can support leaders in thinking. Leaders

01:03:34.480 –> 01:03:38.139
need to make sense of changes. They need to challenge

01:03:38.139 –> 01:03:41.320
assumptions and reimagine their institutions.

01:03:41.519 –> 01:03:45.559
And sometimes we don’t focus much on this cognitive

01:03:45.559 –> 01:03:50.280
process. There’s one aspect. The second is the

01:03:49.869 –> 01:03:53.090
failure something we also saw the fear of failure

01:03:53.090 –> 01:03:57.510
and we don’t discuss openly enough and so also

01:03:57.510 –> 01:04:02.989
creating this fictional organisation really helped

01:04:02.989 –> 01:04:08.070
to start in unpacking the failure but there is

01:04:08.070 –> 01:04:13.449
a real fear in the sector in general about getting

01:04:13.449 –> 01:04:17.409
wrong and specifically and particularly with

01:04:17.409 –> 01:04:20.449
public money involved and but we know if we want

01:04:20.449 –> 01:04:23.389
innovation or digital innovation and if we want

01:04:23.389 –> 01:04:29.519
to think long term we need to fail. But there’s

01:04:29.519 –> 01:04:33.320
no plan that can help envisage this. So we can

01:04:33.320 –> 01:04:36.559
play with failure and feeling less ashamed. So

01:04:36.559 –> 01:04:40.519
these two things, cognition, cognitive and aspects

01:04:40.519 –> 01:04:45.619
and fear of failure. And it would be my two trends.

01:04:48.110 –> 01:04:50.829
Scenarios for Tomorrow is produced by me, Megan

01:04:50.829 –> 01:04:54.570
Crawford, with invaluable feedback from Dr. Isabella

01:04:54.570 –> 01:04:58.230
Riza, Jeremy Creep, Brian Eggo, and as always,

01:04:58.269 –> 01:05:01.590
my kids. This is a production of the Futures

01:05:01.590 –> 01:05:04.710
in Analytics Research Hub and FAR Lab affiliated

01:05:04.710 –> 01:05:07.630
with Edinburgh Napier Business School. You can

01:05:07.630 –> 01:05:10.050
find show notes, references, and transcripts

01:05:10.050 –> 01:05:16.409
at scenarios .farhub .org. That’s scenarios .farhub

01:05:16.409 –> 01:05:19.389
.org. You can follow us across social media by

01:05:19.389 –> 01:05:22.110
searching for Scenario Futures, all one word.

01:05:22.690 –> 01:05:25.329
You can subscribe to Scenarios for Tomorrow wherever

01:05:25.329 –> 01:05:28.269
you listen to your podcasts. Today’s track was

01:05:28.269 –> 01:05:30.670
composed by Rocket, whose links are provided

01:05:30.670 –> 01:05:34.190
in the show notes. This is Scenarios for Tomorrow,

01:05:34.630 –> 01:05:37.030
where tomorrow’s headlines start as today’s thought

01:05:37.030 –> 01:05:37.710
experiments.