This is the only course in the UK that provides business-focused experience with scenario planning and open to the public.
The purpose of the course is to provide SME owners, managers, and entrepreneurs with insights into scenario thinking, efforts of envisioning multiple strategic futures, and experience in scenario planning for their own businesses. The course is designed to support sustainability strategies, following the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Scenario planning is an iterative process that leads to the construction of multiple futures, aimed at supporting strategic, sustainable developments unique to each attendee’s business or sector. The course teaches the Intuitive Logics school of scenario planning, which allows maximum flexibility for all practitioners and eliminates any costly software requirements.
Attendees build scenario thinking skills by learning to identify uncertainties and driving forces within the business environment. This knowledge is used to develop competitive causal and impact mapping skills that contextualise the business environment. Multiple, plausible scenarios are then developed to illustrate comprehensive future visions. Critical and systems thinking are applied to business-specific strategy development based on scenario outcomes.
More information on the short course
The course is taught across four sessions that span a total of (four or five) weeks. Each week builds on the previous week’s work and introduces the next stage of the scenario process. The titles and details for each session are as follows:-
Session 1: Identifying Key Issues and Driving Forces
Familiarise with the SDGs, how they relate and their implications for represented SMEs. Understand the cognitive underpinnings to scenario thinking. Begin the process of scenario planning with Stage 1, developing a repository of driving forces.
Session 2: Developing Causality in our Environment
Continue scenario planning into Stage 2, understand meta-conceptualizations of causally related driving forces and key uncertainties through clustering. Identify plausible outcomes for various causally linked clusters. Articulate links back to key SDGs.
Session 3: Evaluating Predictability and Impact
Move into Stages 3 and 4, strategically evaluate predictability vs uncertainty of clustered driving forces and key uncertainties. Analyse complex impact factors for clusters. Develop multiple scenarios from resulting critical uncertainties.
Session 4: Scenario Development
Complete the final stage by articulating action plans to implement SDG(s) for SMEs based on Stage 4 scenario discoveries.
Produce a scenario planning portfolio for attendees’ businesses.
Entry requirements
Owners and managers of SMEs and entrepreneurs.
How you'll be taught and assessed
Sessions will be taught on campus in a class room. All attendees will be assigned to small groups (2-3 people) and submit their work as a group.
Dates
May 2025: 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd
Time: 2-5pm at Craiglockhart
Assessments
Formative feedback will be provided at each weekly session to the work developed from the previous session. Formative feedforward will be provided for the final scenario planning portfolio submitted one week after the last session.