Using scenarios to reframe challenges unlocks opportunities

In turbulent conditions, using scenarios to reframe and re-perceive challenges can offer a better approach to forming strategy than evidence-based planning, risk management and projection, say the authors of a new book, Strategic Reframing: The Oxford Scenario Planning Approach (OUP), Rafael Ramirez and Angela Wilkinson. Ramirez, a senior fellow in strategy at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, said leaders have often adopted a quasi-scientific approach to planning, using evidence to forecast demand, competition and governance requirements. But, he added, this resolutely "rational" approach is totally unsuited to today's complex, volatile, and ambiguous environment. "Scenario planning, done well, offers a way for people from all walks of life to work together to implement the imaginable rather than waiting to act until the next crisis can be predicted," said Wilkinson, also an associate fellow at Saïd Business School. Ramirez argues that the scenario planning process developed in and taught at Oxford can help strategic teams to avoid groupthink and blinkered vision, and to stop relying on what has worked in the past when making decisions.