Scenario Planning - General Limitations of Scenario Planning

General Limitations of Scenario Planning

Although scenario planning has gained much adherence in industry, its subjective and heuristic nature leaves many academics uncomfortable. How do we know if we have the right scenarios? And how do we go from scenarios to decisions? These concerns are legitimate and scenario planning would gain in academic standing if more research were conducted on its comparative performance and underlying theoretical premises. A collection of chapters by noted scenario planners failed to contain a single reference to an academic source! In general, there are few academically validated analyses of scenario planning (for a notable exception, see Paul J. H. Schoemaker). The technique was born from practice and its appeal is based more on anecdotal than scientific evidence. Furthermore, significant misconceptions remain about its intent and claims. Above all, scenario planning is a tool for collective learning, reframing perceptions and preserving uncertainty when the latter is pervasive. Too many decision makers want to bet on one future scenario, falling prey to the seductive temptation of trying to predict the future rather than to entertain multiple futures. Another trap is to take the scenarios too literally as though they were static beacons that map out a fixed future. In actuality, their aim is to bound the future but in a flexible way that permits learning and adjustment as the future unfolds.

One criticism of the two-by-two technique commonly used is that the resulting matrix results in four somewhat arbitrary scenario themes. If other key uncertainties had been selected, it might be argued, very different scenarios could emerge. How true this is depends on whether the matrix is viewed as just a starting point to be superseded by the ensuing blueprint or is considered as the grand architecture that nests everything else. In either case, however, the issue should not be which are the “right” scenarios but rather whether they delineate the range of possible future appropriately. Any tool that tries to simplify a complex picture will introduce distortions, whether it is a geographic map or a set of scenarios. Seldom will complexity decompose naturally into simple states. But it might. Consider, for example, the behavior of water (the molecule H₂O) which, depending on temperature and pressure, naturally exists in just one of three states: gas, liquid or ice. The art of scenarios is to look for such natural states or points of bifurcation in the behavior of a complex system.

Apart from some inherent subjectivity in scenario design, the technique can suffer from various process and content traps. These traps mostly relate to how the process is conducted in organizations (such as team composition, role of facilitators, etc.) as well as the substantive focus of the scenarios (long vs. short term, global vs. regional, incremental vs. paradigm shifting, etc.). One might think of these as merely challenges of implementation, but since the process component is integral to the scenario experience, they can also be viewed as weaknesses of the methodology itself. Limited safeguards exist against political derailing, agenda control, myopia and limited imagination when conducting scenario planning exercises within real organizations. But, to varying extents, all forecasting techniques will suffer from such organizational limitations. The benchmark to use is not perfection, especially when faced with high uncertainty and complexity, or even strict adherence to such normative precepts as procedural invariance and logical consistency, but whether the technique performs better than its rivals. And to answer this question fairly, performance must be carefully specified. It should clearly include some measures of accuracy as well as a cost-benefit analysis that considers the tradeoff between effort and accuracy. In addition, legitimation criteria may be important to consider as well as the ability to refine and improve the approach as more experience is gained.

A third limitation of scenario planning in organizational settings is its weak integration into other planning and forecasting techniques. Most companies have plenty of trouble dealing with just one future, let alone multiple ones. Typically, budgeting and planning systems are predicated on single views of the future, with adjustments made as necessary through variance analysis, contingency planning, rolling budgets, and periodic renegotiations. The weaknesses of these traditional approaches were very evident after the tragic attack of September 11, 2001 when many companies became paralyzed and quite a few just threw away the plan and budget. Their strategies were not future-proof and they lacked organized mechanisms to adjust to external turmoil. In cases of crisis, leadership becomes important but so does some degree of preparedness. Once the scenarios are finished, the real works starts of how to craft flexible strategies and appropriate monitoring systems. Managers need a simple but comprehensive compass to navigate uncertainty from beginning to end. Scenario planning is just one component of a more complete management system. The point is that scenario thinking needs to be integrated with the existing planning and budgeting system, as awkward as this fit may be. The reality is that most organizations do not handle uncertainty well and that researchers have not provided adequate answers about how to plan under conditions of high uncertainty and complexity.