Lessons Learned: The Difference Between a Successful and a Forgotten Strategic Foresight Initiative
Note – this post is part of a series on using strategic foresight to influence longer-range innovation investments. The full series is available by downloading this eBook.
A successful strategic foresight project is not an event, but rather the beginning of a journey that can continue to drive value for years to come. From our 20+ years of experience, the difference between a successful and a forgotten foresight initiative can be attributed to a few important leading practices:
- Gain critical buy-in is from key stakeholders. Maximize this buy-in by facilitating three or four collaborative workshops throughout the project, and remember that your company – not a consultant – should own the final results.
- Socialize the strategic foresight scenarios and results across the organization. This is challenging but very important. Both the PepsiCo Research Foresight and IRI2038 project created high quality video movies and trailers to communicate the scenarios to the broader organization, which were extremely impactful.
- Don’t forget change management. Long-term and breakthrough ideas need different tools, metrics and incentives than incremental innovation.
- Take the backcasting signals seriously. Review them every quarter and adjust the scenarios if needed.
Done correctly, strategic foresight can enable organizations to build a unique perspective of the future with proprietary and actionable foresight, enabling market entry at the right time with differentiated products and services.
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Strategic foresight enables organizations to build a unique perspective of the future, driving market entry at the right time with differentiated products and services. But not all foresight approaches are created equal.
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