Scenarios in an organizational perspective

Abstract

In everyday life there are many kinds of scenarios—those embracing society as a whole, and those limited to the local community centre. There is considerable variation in scenario subject matter, range, level and degree of detail.1 Why have scenarios become so popular and which organizational arrangements have been created to design and implement this kind of policy-oriented futures research? This article looks at both elements of this question. It examines policy-oriented futures research in general, and scenarios as part of this type of research. It then discusses organizational structures for designing and applying scenarios. Following this, the strong and weak points of scenarios in policy formulation are explored and a number of conclusions are drawn.