From anticipation to action

292 Pages·2005·1.81 MB·English

Future-oriented studies
Other titles in this séries
New technologies and development
Biotechnologies in perspective
Culture des îles et développement/Islands' culture and development
Biotechnologies in developing countries: présent and future. Vol. l:
Régional and national survey
Michel Godet
From anticipation
to action
A handbook of
stratégie prospective
Préface by Joseph F. Coates
UNESCO Publishing
Originally published as De l'anticipation à l'action:
manuel de prospective et de stratégie
© Dunod, Paris, 1991
Translated from the Frcnch by Clare Degenhardt
Rcvised by Valérie Shepherd
The author is rcsponsibie for the choice and the
présentation of the facts contained in this book and for
the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily
those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization.
The désignations employed and the présentation of the
material throughout this publication do not imply the
expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of
UNESCO concerning the légal status of any country,
territory, city or area or of iîs authorities, or concerning
the délimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
Published in 1994 by the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization
7 place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP, France
Composed by Éric Frogé
Printed by Presses Universitaires de France^ Vendôme
ISBN 92-3-102832-4
©UNESCO 1994
Printed in France
Préface
In an âge of anxiety and a period of transition., ail institutions crave
insight into the future. The globalizing of the world's économies is
creating new complexities for business planning and aggravating
uncertainties about the business environment. The imminence of the
miliennium is, for many, a social milestone, a point at which the future
of nations will be seen to be bright and optimistic or in décline. In every
sector, stocktaking, anticipation and plans are the order of the day as we
approach that transition.
This attention to the future is surely favourable to the human
enterprise. But the anticipation of the future is stérile unless it is
accompanied by systematic, well-grounded, comprehensive actionable
plans. Since the séminal work of the Marquis de Condorcet at the tirne of
the French Révolution, the Western worid has learned that it can identify
long-term trends and that it can anticipate many of the conséquences of
new developments. Further, it is clear that our actions influence the
future. But more important is the récognition that we can consciously act
to influence the future in directions in which we wish it to evolve.
Surely no one but a fool would ciaim that we can see the future with
crystalline clarity or that we can take actions which will détermine the
future. AH we need is to agrée on this modest claim: that we can see the
future to a degree that is useful for planning and that we can take
actions which will make désirable outcomes more likely and undesirable
outcomes less likely.
Central to the current look to the future is the concept of alternatives
- that in view of ail the complexity ahead of us, it makes little sensé to
say 'this will happen' or 'that won't happen1. Taking complexity into
Préface
account, we need to recognize a range of alternative futures as the basis
for planning and systematic action.
Professor Godet's vvork is an outstanding example of the intégration
of anticipation and planning for action. But his strengths as an analyst
and as a planner go well beyond that. Too much of the study of the
future - even today in this globalizing world - is parochial and
provincial. Few British or American futurists, planners and forecasters
pay much or any attention to work done outside their national
boundaries and even less attention to work done outside their native
tongue. One of the accomplishments of Professor Godet is to vvork
across cultures and across languages to give his work a value which is
enhanced by his catholicity of perspective and broad embrace of
materials.
By being cross-national in its orientation, Professor Godet's work is
an unusuat, if not unique, contribution to the management and futures
literature. It draws on a wide range of expérience and illustrations and
offers a broader démonstration of techniques practised by corporations
and other organizations than is generally found in other sources.
Godet's work is an attractive intégration of theory, the historical
évolution of management and planning techniques and the practical
tools of the trade, ail amply iliustrated. Again, unlike other vvriters in the
field, Professor Godet offers a felicitous combination of technique and
substance.
Beside UNESCO's traditional readership of national and régional
planners, the primary audience for Professor Godet's book is business
and other organizational planners. The secondary, and nearly as
important, audience is professors teaching courses in business schools
in relation to planning and the future. Along those lines, it might be
noted that many American business schools hâve their curricula under
re-examination and are moving to intégrale futures thinking into the
Master of Business Administration programme. Professor Godet's
work shouid make a spécial, positive contribution to that new move.
The book shouid also find a substantial audience among individuals
without planning responsibilities, vvho, out of curiosity or concern, seek
a better understanding of the choices before us and the tools for
exploring those choices,
JOSEPH F. COATES
Coates &Jarratt, Inc.
Washington, D.C.
Contents
1, FOR ANOTI-IER FUTURE 1
1 Dreams créait rcalky 1
]. 1 The dangers of being reactive and the benefits of being pre-acîive
and pro-active 1
1.2 Using intuition and reason for planning and action 2
1.3 From anticipation to action by means of appropriation 3
1.4 Contingency and change: ! ,001 keys to excellence 4
1.5 Towards a revival of planning 5
2 Scliools of prospective: modcls which endure in spiic offashion 6
2.1 The post-industrial school, bctwcen optimism and pessimism 6
2.2 The neo-Makhusian school ofthought 7
2.3 Long waves and crises as bearers ofhope 8
2.4 Bifurcations, determinism and creativity of chaos 10
2.5 Mutineers and mutants as die bearers of change 13
3 Schools of strategy: coniradictory fashions, complemcnlary modcls 15
3.1 The heuristic schooi: from cornmon sensé to the simplistic 16
3.2 The rationalise school: from success to misuse, pending a revival 19
3.3 Stop bacl American soaps and Japanese curios 20
4 Spreading the cultures of prospective and strategy 25
5 One logic in len chapicrs 26
FROM DETERMINISM TO DETERMINATION, FROM
FORHCASTING TO 'STRATEGIC PROSPECTIVE' 29
1 Action-oriemed anti-fatalislic thinking 29
2 A critique offorecasting 32
2.1 Définitions 32
2.2 Inaccurate data and (instable models 34
2.3 Excessive quantification and extrapolation 34
2.4 The future explained in terms of the past 36
3 Usefulness and scope of prospective 38
3.1 Usefulness and credibility of prospective analysis 38
3.2 What ingrédients go into making an accurate forecast? 39
3.3 What makes a good expert? 39
3.4 The absence of neutrality of information and forecasts 40
4 Pluralism and complcmentarity 41
4.1 Problems and methods 41
4.2 Planning needs forecasts with scénarios 44
4.3 Proposais for solving the crisis in forecasting 45
4.4 Key concepts for a methodology 47
5 Practical advice for future thinking 47
5.1 Ask the right questions and mistrust convcntional wisdom 47
5.2 Think in the long term and imagine first what wilt not change 49
5.3 Use simple, adaptable methods to stimuiate thought and
facilitate communication 50
5.4 Start with prospective workshops 51
5.5 Practical guideiines for prospective groups 53
THE SCÉNARIOS METHOD 57
1 Origins and définitions 57
2 Types of scénarios and stratégies 60
3 Objectives of the scénarios method 63
3.1 Construction of the base 64
3.2 Building scénarios 67
4 Illustrations 74
4.1 Scénarios as tools of strategy and/or management 74
4.2 Successful utilisation of scénarios - the case of Elf 77
5 Anticipation and scénarios: myihs and rcalities 79
4. IDENTIFYING THE KEY VARIABLES:
STRUCTURAL ANALYS I S 83
1 Origins and objectives of'structural analysis 83
2 Listing ail the variables 84
3 Location qf relationships wilhin the structural analysis matrix 85
4 Search for the key variables wilh the MICMAC® method 90
4.1 Direct and indirect classification (MICMAC®) 91
4.2 The MICMAC® principle: raising the power of the matrix 93
4.3 Comparison betwcen direct, indirect and potential classifications 96
4.4 The influence-dependence chart 99
5 Value ami limitations of structural analysis 101
5. UNDERSTANDÏNG THE ACTORS' STRATEGIES:
THE MACTOR0 METHOD 105
1 Constructing the actars' strategy table 108
2 Idenlifying the stratégie issues and associatcd objectives 111
3 Positioning each actor in relation to the stratégie objectives (signed
position matrix) 113
4 Ranking the objectives for each actor (valued position matrix) and
assessing the range of possible convergences and divergences 115
5 Evaluaiing the balance of power and formulating stratégie recom-
mendations (valued matrix of position wilh power coefficients) 119
6 Key questions for the future 126
6. REDUCING UNCERTAINTY:
EXPERT CONSENSUS METHODS 129
1 Scanning possible futures: morphological analysis 130
1.1 The field of possible futures^ a morphological space 130
1.2 Problems and limitations 132
1.3 The useful morphological subspace 132
2 An inventory of expert-consensus methods 134
2.1 The Delphi method 134
2.2 Voting machines: Regnier's Abacus and the Consensor 137
2.3 Cross-impact methods 139
3 The SMIC method 142
3.1 The principle and the aim of SMIC 143
3.2 Relationships between hypothèses and scénarios: the search for
cohérence 144