Client – Defence and Security Engineering Company
Brief – The twin pressures of significant changes in the business, and also the pressing need to innovate, when taken together necessitated a clear market and business environmental input to future business strategy. This input was particularly needed in the definition and selection of new products for the business. Foresighting (frequently known as scenarios planning) had been identified as a very powerful way of generating a robust input to business strategy. The brief was to provide specialist support and advice to Thales in planning, conducting and consolidating the Foresighting workshops.
Contribution – A crucial element of the delivery support was to recognise that, despite the process of conducting a foresighting activity being relatively standardized, considerable fine-tuning is needed to accommodate the circumstances of the client business. This fine- tuning covered aspects such as the particular scenarios selected; the “questions” about the possible future being considered; and the nature and number of participants in each workshop session.
Vee Solutions supported by developing an outline strategy for the Foresighting project that followed six broad phases:
- Define project scope and deliverables;
- Develop and test multiple scenarios relevant to the business that generate rich ideas;
- Select the best scenarios for “live” workshops;
- Generate all collateral needed to support the facilitators in delivering the workshops.
- Plan and deliver a series workshops;
- Collate and analyse workshop outputs.
Outcome – Tangible outcomes from the project were explicitly aimed at transferring knowledge to the client team so they are now trained and capable of delivering Foresighting workshops themselves:
- Learning from earlier workshops was fed into subsequent events;
- The Foresighting project leader thoroughly trained and experienced in planning, customising and delivering a foresighting activity;
- The workshop participants were enthused to think about and explore possible futures for the business in a creative and innovative way.
The overall objectives of expanding thinking, broadening horizons, and stimulating creativity were achieved for a group of approximately 60 people, a significant proportion of the business leadership.