A little background info

Let me take a moment to explain what I do and how I got interested in this fascinating technique. And especially, why it could be of great strategic value to you.

When I graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA back in the 1980s, I accepted a marketing job with a big Swiss pharmaceutical company. As is often the case with young MBAs convinced that the world is their oyster, I switched employers a couple of times over the next few years, climbing the ladder by jumping jobs. I worked for a Swiss bank in marketing, and then ran a small publishing company.

But then lightning struck.

I was offered a position at the prestigious World Economic Forum in Geneva, and a year later became a member of its Executive Board. In the various high-level conferences I took part in around the world as a Forum executive, especially its annual gathering of around 2,000 business and government leaders in Davos, Switzerland, something was revealed to me that I probably would not have been exposed to in any other job:

Spending time in the company of a lot of CEOs and board-level executives, I became aware of how hungry the top decision makers of organizations are for insights about how the future might develop. True, in middle management you also make plans for the future, but it’s these senior leaders, with their responsibility for getting an entire organization in shape to exploit long-term trends and changes which may only be dimly perceptible, that you unmistakably sense this burning need on their part. It's the reason why meetings like the ones in Davos even happen in the first place: Everyone there is responsible for the future success of his or her company, so they spend every waking moment during the gathering picking each other's brains for ideas, observations, inspirations, new perspectives… anything that could help them see “around the next bend in the road."

At the time I was working there, I wasn’t aware that methodologies or techniques existed for gaining useful foresight into the future. But fast-forward another few years. I was just finishing a long stint as the Director of Marketing at the world’s No. 1-ranked school of hospitality management, the famous Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, and I stumbled upon a fascinating but under-appreciated approach to this challenge — but one that clearly could open your eyes to realistic possibilities that might emerge in your company’s future “landscape”.

This technique was called scenario planning. I particularly loved the way it combined both strategic thinking and creativity, a demanding mix that really gets your juices flowing.

I was smitten.

So I left my job at the school and hung up a shingle that essentially said "Woody Wade — Scenario Planner For Hire" and began to preach this gospel, working to persuade organizations that they really could have this enlightening foresight experience and gain a solid idea about how their future could plausibly turn out.

Since then I have worked with dozens of organizations (in about 35 countries at last count), applying this technique to help them do just that.

Now I want to show you this technique for visualizing — and understanding — how the terrain in which you operate could change in a few short years, so you can be better prepared for the new environment that could take shape.

SCENARIO PLANNING: It’s not rocket science!

No, it isn’t rocket science. But neither is it pie-in-the-sky daydreaming. There’s a logical process involved, and my role is to help you apply this process to your specific situation.

On this web site, I tell you more about this technique and the different ways I use it to help organizations like yours, for example through:

  • tailored, in-depth Scenario Generation Workshops;

  • a Master Class that walks you and your whole management team through the how’s, why’s and wherefore’s of the methodology in just 90 minutes;

  • a “Private Briefing” in which we can explore your future in a 1-on-1 session;

  • the possibility to learn about scenario planning in a 1-hour e-Course; or

  • by reading my how-to Books on the subject.

Welcome to my site.

So that is how I got interested in this intriguing concept, and how I’ve developed some specific ways that I can apply this thinking to help you. (If you’d like to know even more about my background, you can take a look at my bio here.)