Management Consulting, Strategic Foresight Advising, Applied Tech Trends Research, and Futures Workshops

 

We answer your most challenging questions using strategic foresight.

 

What is your organization’s FutureX?

Every organization and industry must take an active role in building its future. Our FutureX projects reveal your plausible future states, whether that’s a new business unit or service line, a bold strategic plan, or a clear vision for how to shape your industry. We use our technology-led, data-driven forecasting methodology for FutureX projects, which includes: signal mapping, trend identification, scenario development, risk modeling, visioning and strategic planning.

    Outcomes
A clear articulation of your time horizons; alignment on your organization’s vision for the future; identification of signals and trends relevant to your industry; stakeholder matrix including familiar, adjacent and future players; scenarios describing your organization’s optimistic, pessimistic and preferred futures; a clear, risk-balanced strategy to take action on your preferred outcomes; capabilities to continue doing strategic foresight work within your organization.

    Client Case Study
A multinational CPG organization’s FutureX involved reimagining ice cream and the global cold chain. We used our complete methodology to reverse-engineer desired future states across three work streams. This resulted in a new strategic plan and a new process to build internal capacity for strategic foresight within the organization.

 

How do we mange Covid-19 disruption?

The global coronavirus pandemic will lead to downstream implications we’re only beginning to see. Now is the time to rewrite your strategic plan and to create recovery scenarios for your company and industry. We will develop a series of provocative scenarios that describe future states in a post-Covid world and help you see new opportunities where previously you only saw constraints. We will reveal your preferred future state, and we will empower you to discover and take the steps you need to achieve your desired outcomes.

    Outcomes
A clear articulation of your time horizons over the immediate, near and long-term; alignment on your organization’s vision for the future; a set of scenarios describing your organization’s optimistic, pessimistic and preferred future scenarios; a clear, risk-balanced strategy to take action on your preferred outcomes.

    Client Case Study
Using our scenario modeling frameworks, we advised a multinational investment bank on the next-order economic implications of the Covid-19 crisis. We developed clear optimistic, neutral and catastrophic futures and developed a set of recovery scenarios spanning different industries. We applied one of our measurement frameworks to enable the client to evaluate and prioritize strategic actions.

 

What tech trends should we monitor? When do we act?

How can you distinguish between “trend” and “trendy,” and which long-term trends should your business be following? FTI’s rigorous, data-driven method for finding, tracking and monitoring trends is used by hundreds of organizations worldwide. We work with your team to surface relevant trends and develop an escalation system so you know when to take actions on them.

    Outcomes
Identification of signals relevant to your industry; a list of trends your organization should track; a method to calculate the trajectory and impact of those trends; a tool to determine when to escalate those trends for action.

    Client Case Study
In building its strategy for the future of content, a major media organization needed to identify drivers of change within its industry as well as external drivers influencing the future of news and entertainment media. We developed a map of rich, diverse information that offered micro and macro trends for the client as well as the media and telecommunications industries. We created a tool now used by the company to determine when and what kind of action to take on trends.

 


The Future Today Institute offers advisory services, workshops, speeches and lectures, bespoke research and foresight coaching for leaders and teams.

 

Learn more about the Future Today Institute's Consulting and Foresight Master Classes. 

Download a printable overview of our work.

 

Advisory Services

 

We support executive leadership teams.

The Future Today Institute works closely with executive leadership and management teams to transform their strategic thinking on the future. Advisory services include: signal mapping, trend identification, scenario development, risk modeling, visioning and strategic planning.

Management consulting and advisory engagements range from a few weeks to a few months.

Managing through Covid-19: Identifying next-order implications of the global pandemic and ensuring decision points and strategies fit into your preferred longer-term outlook.

Building organizational capacity for foresight: Coaching others on FTI’s core frameworks, tools and methods of strategic foresight; developing curricula and workshops for organizations who want to build a culture and practice of foresight.

Near-term strategic planning: Helping executives develop their strategic plans to account for emerging trends, shifts in macro trends, and deep uncertainty in areas outside of their industry.

Visioning and long-term planning: Helping executives develop a long-term position for their organization; developing scenarios; backcasting preferred futures back to the present day for action.

Scenario development: Supporting executive leaders in building models for future risk and opportunity; prioritizing action to address those models.

 

Virtual and In-Person Workshops

 

Our custom forecasting workshops facilitate a practical exploration of your futures.

During the Covid-19 quarantine period, we are hosting workshops virtually. Sessions are tailored for each client's specific needs and can range from 1-2 hours to a series of workshops spread over a few weeks.

Using our unique convening framework, we bring together your organizaton with our futurists for custom workshops. We are able to accommodate the schedules of busy teams and executives. Workshops range from a few hours per session to multi-day intensives. We work with clients to custom-build the best workshop for each team and project. Shorter workshops can be incorporated into conference agendas. All participants receive pre-workshop reading materials, custom researcn and a foresight toolkit.

 



This Foresight Masterclass offers a practical, hands-on learning experience for organizations who want to develop their capacity for strategic foresight. Teams learn the most essential tools of futurists and how to apply them within their organizations.

Based on the MBA course Amy Webb teaches at NYU Stern and The Signals Are Talking: Why Today's Fringe Is Tomorrow's Mainstream, Amy Webb's bestselling book, you and your team will learn the fundamentals of strategic foresight. In advance of the session, participants receive hard copies of course materials, a copy of Signals, and a short assignment.

Available as virtual or in-person individual sessions or as a comprehensive deep-dive into foresight. Participants will learn how to apply FTI's strategic foresight frameworks and will be positioned to build a culture of strategic foresight within your organization.



This hands-on risk and threat mapping workshop teaches participants how to understand plausible threats using data-driven frameworks.

Before you can plan for the next disruption, you must radically rethink your approach to risk. Using a transdisciplinary approach, you and your team will consider adjacent and theoretical influences on your organization, find next-order risks, and know when to take action. If you can spot risk early enough, you mitigate it -- or even use it as a catalyst for innovation.

Available as a virtual or in-person half or full-day session. During the workshop, we will introduce a series of strategic foresight tools to help you identify plausible future risks and threats, as well as how to assess their seriousness. Participants will develop a system to make decisions given the associated risks, and to take incremental actions.



How can you distinguish between “trend” and “trendy,” and which long-term trends should your business be following? FTI's rigorous, data-driven method for finding, tracking and monitoring signals and trends is used by hundreds of organizations worldwide. We work with your team to surface relevant trends and develop an escalation system so you know when to take actions on them.

In this workshop, participants learn the critically important first two steps of FTI's forecasting methodology: listening for weak signals at the fringe, and applying the CIPHER pattern recognition tool to surface emerging trends.

Available as a virtual or in-person half or full-day workshop.




What might a post-coronavirus world look like? How will we live, work and do business in the future? Discover multiple future states for your organization. The purpose of this workshop is to help your team have strategic conversations that spark new ideas, potential threats, and generate discussion on topics related to social change, geopolitical shifts, and quality of life.

For organizations that have been directly impacted by the global Covid-19 pandemic, or for teams that are working on longer-range projects––those having to do with artificial intelligence, climate change, warfare, global population shifts, agriculture––a worldbuilding workshop offers rich strategic insights.

Available as a virtual or in-person half or full-day workshop. Organizations learn a set of tools to help them construct a world of the future, so that they can visualize and experience it as a team, in the present.



Scenario mapping workshops use data from an organization and adjacent industries, as well as trend insights, to build narratives describing plausible futures. Participants learn how to map scenarios to understand next-order impacts, develop new product and service ideas, and create strategic visions for organizations. Scenario workshops are also used to test theories for strategic change within organizations, industries and on the geopolitical stage.

This workshop isn't like other scenario mapping activities. Participants learn the Future Today Institute's unique, proven methods for creating data-driven scenarios across different emotive framings. As a last step, they apply a probabilistic model to help them make decisions.

Available as a virtual or in-person full-day workshop.



How can you plan for an uncertain future? Futurists use a process called "backcasting," a strategic process leaders can use to reverse-engineer their preferred future states. Participants will use backcasting to offset current challenges like the coronavirus. They will also use backcasting to make critical immediate, near and longer-term decisions.

In this session, we will use key FTI frameworks to analyzing new business opportunities and threats, calculate their likely demand in the marketplace, and determining potential risks.

Available as a virtual or in-person half-day or full-day workshop.

Speaking

 

FTI offers custom virtual and in-person keynote speeches to corporate audiences, boards of directors, festivals, and association gatherings around the world. 

We have presented on some of the world's most influential stages, including: South By Southwest (SXSW), the World Economic Forum, the Milken Institute Global Conference, the Aspen Ideas Festival and TED, and we have addressed teams at hundreds of companies and governmental organizations, including Sony, PayPal, IBM, Microsoft, UnitedHealth Group, Fidelity Investments, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and many others. During the Covid-19 quarantine period, we are offering virtual lectures and panel.

 

Foresight Program

 

Get custom research, trends, scenarios and advisory services for your organization. 

Started in 2008, the Foresight Program is a yearlong collaboration between FTI's futurists and your team. The Foresight Program is uniquely designed to ensure that you, your team and your organization are positioned to create your own preferred futures. Every quarter, we will lead your team through foresight exercises to build your organization's internal capacity for strategic foresight while staying ahead of disruptive forces. You and your team will receive:

• Quarterly in-person or virtual workshops

• Access to collaborate and brainstorm with the Institute’s staff

• Custom tech trends research

• On-demand access to collaborate and brainstorm with the Institute’s staff

• Custom toolkits created for your organization

• A keynote presentation for your organization

To learn more about how the Foresight Program will prepare your organization for the future, please contact us.