Scenario Planning Select Bibliography
Originally edited by Kees van der Heijden. Updated by George Burt & Ron Bradfield
To download a printable PDF version click here (PDF, 24k)
Getting started
van der Heijden, Kees. Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation. Chichester & New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996 & 2005 (2nd edition)
A general conceptual and methodological overview.
http://www.wiley.com/
van der Heijden K, Bradfield R, Burt G, Cairns G and Wright G: The Sixth Sense, Accelerating Organisational Learning with Scenarios. Chichester & New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002
Develops scenario planning, and its underpinning methodology, with organisational learning. Discusses the psychological barriers to organisational learning.
http://www.wiley.com/
Schwartz, Peter. The Art of the Long View: Paths to Strategic Insight for Yourself and Your Company. (2nd edition) New York: Doubleday Currency, 1996.
The most–read introduction to the subject of scenario planning.
Ringland, Gill. Scenario Planning: Managing for the Future. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1998.
A series of cases and examples.
http://www.wiley.com/
Methods
Ackoff, Russell, Presearch Series, GBN "Placing scenarios in a systemic context"
Best, Eric (editor) "Probabilities - Help or Hindrance in Scenario Planning?" Deeper News (Emeryville, CA: GBN) Summer 1991
Do scenarios come with probabilities attached?
Fahey, Liam, and Robert M. Randall (eds.), Learning from the Future. New York: John Wiley
& Sons, 1997.
Various perspectives on scenario planning from a large number of authors.
http://www.wiley.com/
Van der Heijden, Kees, Presearch Series, GBN "Scenarios, strategy and the strategy process"
Integrating scenarios and strategy
Hodgson, Anthony. "Hexagons for Systems Thinking." European Journal of Operational Research 59, no. 1 (1992): 220-230.
About a visual facilitation technique to support scenario planning.
Leemhuis, Jaap "Using Scenarios to Develop Strategies", Long Range Planning, 18, No. 2 (1985).
Integrating risk and decision-making with scenario planning.
Michael, Don, Presearch Series, GBN On "making things happen"
Schoemaker, Paul J. H., and Kees van der Heijden. "Integrating Scenarios into Strategic Planning at Royal Dutch/Shell." Planning Review 20, no. 3 (1992): 41-46.
How Shell institutionalized scenario planning in the overall planning process.
Vennix, Jac A.M., H.A. Akkermans, E.A.J.A. Rouwette. "Group Model Building to Facilitate Organizational Change: An Exploratory Study." Systems Dynamics Review 12, no. 1 (1996): 39-58.
About creating group systems thinking.
Wilkinson, Lawrence. "How To Build Scenarios." Wired [Scenarios: 1.01 Special Edition] (September 1995): 74-81.
One (simple) way of doing it
In Practice
Le Roux, Pieter "The Mont Fleur Scenarios." Deeper News (Emeryville, CA: Global Business Network) 7, no. 1 (1997).
The multi-stakeholder scenario process in South Africa
Ogilvy, James, "Three Scenarios for Higher Education." The Deeper News (Emeryville, CA: Global Business Network) 3, no. 1 (1992); reprinted in Thought & Action: The NEA Higher Education Journal 9, no.1 (1993).
Three scenarios developed with the national education Board
Brand, Stewart and Schwartz, Peter. Decades of Restructuring: The 1989 GBN Scenario Book. Emeryville, CA, 1989.
Driving Forces produce divergent futures
The Congress of South Africa Trade Unions, September Commission. The Future of the Unions. Johannesburg: COSATU (August 1997)
A report to COSATU on scenarios for labour.
http://www.cosatu.org.za/congress/sept-ch1.htm
Destino Colombia, A Scenario-Planning Process for the New Millennium, Deeper News (Emeryville. CA: GBN) 9, no 1, 1998.
Institute of Economic Affairs and Society for International Development. Kenya at the crossroads: Scenarios for our Future. Nairobi: Institute of Economic affairs, 2000.
Kenya’s national scenario project
Wilkinson, Lawrence and Cowan, Jim. The Logics of Change: The 1995 GBN Scenario Book. Emeryville, CA, 1995.
Different logics and implications of change
McCorduck, Pamela, and Nancy Ramsey. The Futures of Women: Scenarios for the 21st Century. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1996.
A scenaric look at the future of women
Peters, Glen. Beyond the Next Wave: Imagining the Next Generation of Customers. London: Pitman Publishing, 1996.
Scenario thinking about new markets
Daimler Benz, Scenarios on the Future of the Internet, by BC Fuller and NN Tolia
Rosell, Steven A. Changing Maps: Governing in a World of Rapid Change. Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1995
A scenario discussion on the future of Canada
Vision Guatemala (Spanish language)
Guatemal’s national scenario project
World Business Council for Sustainable Development Exploring Sustainable Development, WBCSD Global Scenarios 2000-2050
Also refer to "Greedy Frogs, balanced Humans, and Improvisational Music: The Plenary Scenarios of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development." Whole Earth Review, Spring 1999.
Three scenarios letting businesses envision for the future of sustainability
Scenarios for Scotland, University of St. Andrew's and University of Strathclyde, Scotland
Scotland’s post–devolution National scenario project
Shell Global Scenarios to 2005: The future business environment: trends, trade–offs and choices
Two scenarios that explore major uncertainties and predetermined elements
Sources of Scenario Thinking
Ashby, W.R. "Self–regulation and Requisite Variety." In Systems Thinking, edited by F. E. Emery. New York: Penguin, 1983.
About the degree of richness in mental models, needed to cope.
Bénard, André. "World Oil and Cold Reality." Harvard Business Review 58, no. 5 (1980): 91-101
Scenarios: making people think.
Bradfield, Ron What we know and what we believe: Lessons from cognitive psychology Development: volume 47, number 4, 35-42
Cognitive limitations impacting scenario thinking
Burt, George. "Epigenetic Change: New from the Seeds of the Old." Journal of Strategic Change 12: 381-393, 2003
Discussion on strategic change from scenario interventions
Calvin, William H. The Cerebral Symphony: Seashore Reflections on the Structure of Consciousness. New York: Bantam Books, 1989.
People have an innate ability to build scenarios.
Churchman, C. West. The Design of Inquiring Systems. New York: Basic Books, 1971.
The larger systemic context.
Colinvaux, Paul A. "Towards a Theory of History: Fitness, Niche and Cluth of Homo Sapiens." The Journal of Ecology 70, no. 2 (1982): 393-412.
Why history happens.
Daft, Richard L., and Karl E. Weick. "Toward a Model of Organizations as Interpretation Systems." Academy of Management Review 9, no. 2 (1984): 284-295.
About social construction of reality in organizations.
De Geus, Arie. "Planning as Learning." Harvard Business Review 66, no. 2 (1988): 70- 74.
Organizational learning as a way to interpret what planners (including scenario planners) do.
Douglas, Mary. How Institutions Think. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986.
The interaction between thinking and culture.
Emery, F. E., and E.L. Trist. "The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments." Human Relations 18, no. 1 (1965): 21-32.
Categorizing the environment.
Forrester, Jay W. Industrial Dynamics. Portland, OR: Productivity Press (originally Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 1961.
How systems thinking was introduced into the world of management.
Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Viking Press, 1987.
The book that put "intrinsic uncertainty" on the map.
Ingvar, David H. "Memories of the Future: An Essay on the Temporal Organization of Conscious Awareness." Human Neurobiology 4, no. 3 (1985): 127-136.
Suggesting that we are all natural scenario planners.
Jungermann, Helmut, and Manfred Thuring. "The Use of Mental Models for Generating Scenarios." In Judgmental Forecasting, edited by G. Wright and P. Ayton. Chichester & New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1987.
A theoretical model of what scenario planning is about.
Kleiner, Art. The Age of Heretics: Heroes, Outlaws, and the Forerunners of Corporate Change. New York: Doubleday Currency, 1996.
The people behind the thinking.
Michael, Donald N. Learning to Plan and Planning to Learn. 2d ed. Alexandria, VA: Miles River Press, 1997.
The ways planning works as a process of learning.
Miller, Danny. "The Architecture of Simplicity." Academy of Management Review 18, no. 1 (1993): pp. 116-138.
How world views simplify over time.
Neustadt, Richard, and Ernest R. May. Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decisionmakers. New York: Free Press, 1986.
What historical thinking has to offer.
Ogilvy, James. "Future Studies and the Human Sciences: The Case for Normative Scenarios." Futures Research Quarterly 8, no. 2 (1992): 5-65.
Normative scenarios, the debate continues.
Ogilvy, James. "Scenario Planning as the Fulfillment of Critical Theory." Futures Research Quarterly 12, no. 2 (1996): 5-33.
Situates scenario planning in the tradition of social criticism.
Porter, Michael E. "What is Strategy?" Harvard Business Review 74, no. 6 (1996): 61- 74.
Fit between the organization and its environment.
Schnaars, Stephen P. "How to Develop Business Strategies from Multiple Scenarios." In Handbook of Business Strategy 1986/87, edited by W.D. Guth. Boston: Warren, Gosham and Lamont, 1986.
Examples of how scenarios influence strategy.
Schoemaker, Paul J. H. "Multiple Scenario Development: Its Conceptual and Behavioral Foundation." Strategic Management Journal 14 (1993): 193-213.
Scenarios and biases in human thinking.
Vickers, Geoffrey. Human Systems are Different. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
The extra dimension of purpose.
Vygotsky, Lev. Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986.
What people can and cannot learn.
Wack, Pierre. "Scenarios: the Gentle Art of Re-perceiving." [Working Paper.] Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School, 1984.
_____. "Scenarios: Uncharted Waters Ahead." Harvard Business Review 63, no. 5 (1985):72-79.
_____. "Scenarios: Shooting the Rapids." Harvard Business Review 63, no. 6 (1985): 139-150.