Foresight Cards
Guides for the Foresight Cards
Background and methods to start working with the cards yourself.
General guidelines
The Foresight Cards are an analysis tool for the external environment. Put the cards on the table, pick the forces that matter for your question, and use them as a shared language in a session. Combine them with a SWOT, a Porter analysis, a business model, a system diagram or scenario planning.
STEEP explained
STEEP organises external forces into five categories: Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental and Political. It helps you look beyond your own sector and reveal blind spots.
Macro, meso and micro environment
The cards focus on the macro or contextual environment: forces you do not control but that act on you. Around it sit the meso environment (your market and sector) and the micro environment (your own organisation). The distinction helps separate external developments from what is within your control.
Patterns of change
A force rarely changes in a straight line. The ‘patterns of change’ show typical trajectories: a stable trend, a steady increase or decrease, a temporary hype, and gradual or abrupt discontinuities. Naming the pattern for each force sharpens your picture of the future.
Trend
A recurring pattern that becomes visible once you look at data over a longer period.
Gradual discontinuity
A paradigm shift that builds up gradually, so we may still be able to influence the change to come.
Hype or rage
Hype: a development people expect far too much of. Rage: a product or lifestyle that is briefly fashionable.
Abrupt discontinuity
A paradigm shift so fast that a system becomes unstable; the change can no longer be influenced.
Advanced: combine patterns
You can chain patterns together to describe a single development over time. The Gartner Hype Cycle, for instance, combines an accelerated increase, a temporary peak and steady growth.
Source: Van Rijn, M. & Van der Burgt, R. (2012). Handboek Scenarioplanning. Deventer: Kluwer, pp. 32-42.