Establish a Foresight Capability

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To be recognized and validated as a forward-thinking CIO, you must establish a structured approach to innovation that considers external trends as well as internal processes.
The CEO is expecting an investment in IT innovation to yield either cost reduction or revenue growth, but growth cannot happen without opportunity identification.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Technological innovation is disrupting business models – and it’s happening faster than organizations can react.
Smaller, more agile organizations have an advantage because they have less resources tied to existing operations and can move faster.

Impact and Result

Be the disruptor, not the disrupted. This blueprint will help you plan proactively and identify opportunities before your competitors.
Strategic foresight gives you the tools you need to effectively process the signals in your environment, build an understanding of relevant trends, and turn this understanding into action.

Establish a Foresight Capability Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to effectively apply strategic foresight, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Establish a Foresight Capability – Executive Brief

1. Signal gathering

Develop a better understanding of your external environment and build a database of signals.

2. Trends and drivers

Select and analyze trends to uncover drivers.

3. Scenario building

Use trends and drivers to build plausible scenarios and brainstorm strategic initiatives.

4. Idea selection

Apply the wind tunneling technique to assess strategic initiatives and determine which are most likely to succeed in the face of uncertainty.

Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

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Workshop: Establish a Foresight Capability

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Pre-workshop – Gather Signals and Build a Repository

The Purpose

Gather relevant signals that will inform your organization about what is happening in the external competitive environment.

Note: this is preparation for the workshop and is not offered onsite.

Key Benefits Achieved

A better understanding of the competitive landscape.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Gather relevant signals.

1.2

Store signals in a repository for quick and easy recall during the workshop.

A set of signal items ready for analysis

Module 2: Identify Trends and Uncover Drivers

The Purpose

Uncover trends in your environment and assess their potential impact.
Determine the causal forces behind relevant trends to inform strategic decisions.

Key Benefits Achieved

An understanding of the underlying causal forces that are influencing a trend that is affecting your organization.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Cluster signals into trends.

2.2

Analyze trend impact and select a key trend.

A collection of relevant trends with a key trend selected

2.3

Perform causal analysis.

2.4

Select drivers.

A set of drivers influencing the key trend with primary drivers selected

Module 3: Build Scenarios and Ideate

The Purpose

Leverage your understanding of trends and drivers to build plausible scenarios and apply them as a canvas for ideation.

Key Benefits Achieved

A set of potential responses or reactions to trends that are affecting your organization.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Build scenarios.

Four plausible scenarios for ideation purposes

3.2

Brainstorm potential strategic initiatives (ideation).

A potential strategic initiative that addresses each scenario

Module 4: Apply Wind Tunneling and Select Ideas

The Purpose

Assess the various ideas based on which are most likely to succeed in the face of uncertainty.

Key Benefits Achieved

An idea that you have tested in terms of risk and uncertainty.
An idea that can be developed and pitched to the business or stored for later use.

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Assign probabilities to scenarios.

4.2

Apply wind tunneling.

4.3

Select ideas.

4.4

Discuss next steps and prototyping.

A strategic initiative (idea) that is ready to move into prototyping

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

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Guided Implementation 1: Signal gathering

Call 1: Signal sources and gathering strategies.
Call 2: Building and maintaining a useful signal repository.

Guided Implementation 2: Trends and drivers

Call 1: Clustering signals into trends and selecting a key trend.
Call 2: Performing causal analysis, uncovering and selecting drivers.

Guided Implementation 3: Scenario building

Call 1: Building a canvas for ideation.
Call 2: Ideating for specific scenarios.

Guided Implementation 4: Idea selection

Call 1: Applying wind tunneling best practices.
Call 2: Selecting an idea and moving to prototyping.

Author

David Glazer

Contributors

Valerie Fox, Chief Innovation Consultant, The Pivotal Point & Co-Founder, DMZ at Ryerson University
Jerry Koh, Manager, Solutions Lab at MaRS Discovery District
Paul Pochon, CIO & SVP IT (former), Shoppers Drug Mart
Andi Mann, Chief Technology Advocate, Splunk
Susan Doniz, Founder & President, MAS & former CIO at AIMIA
Emma Antunes, Special Advisor to the CIO, NASA
Ivan Winfield, CIO at Seaboard Corporation
Alex Coleman, CIO at Saskatchewan Worker’s Compensation Board
Karl Schroeder, Chair, The Millennium Project (Canada) & Foresight Studies Consultant, Narrative Futures
Deborah Henderson, Worldwide Program Director at DAMA-DMBOK