Scenario Planning and Communications: How Does Scenario Planning Apply to Communications Jobs?

Scenario Planning and Communications: How Does Scenario Planning Apply to Communications Jobs?

I teach scenario planning in the University of Washington’s Communications Leadership program. We have toyed with various titles for my course, including my favorite, and I think most accurate, Strategic Storytelling. Unfortunately, that is not a common moniker for scenario planning, which usually lives in an MBA program tucked under strategic planning as a subdiscipline. So, we now just call it by the practice: scenario planning.

My job is to help people think about the future so they can be better communicators and better leaders. How to think about the future is seldom taught, and it doesn’t exist in elementary or secondary schools structured around the Common Core curriculum. Leaders need the skill now more than ever.

Link to UW Scenario Planning course

Not only does scenario planning have broad business applications, but learning how to think about the future effectively is a life-changing experience. Recognizing uncertainty and grappling with the implications of how the resolution of uncertainties influences each other through time and across the social, technological, economic, environmental, and political spectrum empowers people to become more insightful, more agile, and more resilient.

Leaders need to understand how scenario planning works, even if they don’t employ a set of scenarios in their work, though I would argue any role in industry, the public sector or the not-for-profit realm that faces potential disruption needs to make use of scenarios―that means most, if not all businesses, and certainly all governments and most not-for-profits. The retreat from globalization and the rise of AI are just two factors among dozens that will interplay to shape the future. Scenario planning explores dozens more.

Leaders can choose ignorance, hubris, faith or luck to navigate an uncertain future, or they can engage with it, put names on the uncertainties, build models of what could be, practice contingencies and envision good outcomes from even poor situations. Navigating the future isn’t a luxury skill but an essential competency for all leaders.

Scenario Planning’s Role in Various Communications Activities

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Content Development and Thought Leadership

Scenario planning enhances content development by allowing writers to anticipate audience needs, preferences, and platforms for consuming content which may evolve over time. By exploring various future scenarios—such as shifts in reader attention spans, changes in content distribution channels, or the impact of new technologies like AI-driven personalization—writers can craft content that remains engaging and relevant across different potential futures.

This foresight helps long-form content maintain its value, ensuring it addresses emerging trends and societal changes while providing deep, insightful analysis that resonates with diverse audiences. Scenario planning also encourages adaptability in narrative structure and style, ensuring writers can effectively convey complex ideas, regardless of the shifting media landscape.

Shorter content may be less impacted by scenarios, but even with tactical communications, a richer context can help connect the mundane to the visionary.

For thought leadership, scenarios provide the foundations for explorations of multiple topics. At Microsoft, Cisco and other organizations where I developed scenarios about the future of work or the future of human resources, the resulting thought leadership papers, books and presentations remain much more relevant than content developed with a contextless vision. Scenarios also create the scaffolding for exploring adjacent topics.

The future of work scenarios spawned white papers that covered the future of manufacturing, the future of government, the future of the citizens, the future of healthcare, the future of education, and many others. Each of those papers started with the scenarios and explored how its more specific topic, industry or idea would evolve under different social, technological, economic, environmental and political circumstances.

Papers based on scenarios make people think: thinking that the authors reflect the values of a company that isn’t just concerned with the next sale or the next quarter, and it makes them think about themselves and their organizations in new ways. And those who publish thought leadership content receive credit for encouraging those reflections.

It’s fine for an organization to have a vision, but it is not OK to create that vision from whole cloth. Scenarios stress test visions and offer alternatives that may be as compelling as the “official future.” When crafting vision narratives, those stress tests should be reflected back into the hero story to make it more robust and resilient.

Content Marketing

Content marketing often hinges on engaging audiences in the right context at the right time. Scenario planning helps content marketers anticipate shifts in media consumption, platform popularity, and audience preferences, preparing them for multiple futures where user behavior and content formats may drastically change. By developing content strategies that are resilient to market fluctuations and changing technologies, marketers can maintain audience engagement and brand relevance, even as business ecosystems transform.

Scenario planning also encourages marketers to adopt new storytelling techniques that include a healthy respect for uncertainty and humbleness in the face of change. It’s OK for an organization or a leader to say they don’t know. It’s even better if they say they don’t know but that they have a process for helping them manage through the unknown.

Leadership and Communities

Scenario planning enhances leadership within communities by helping leaders anticipate future challenges and opportunities in diverse social, political, and economic contexts. By envisioning multiple possible futures, leaders can guide their communities through uncertainty, fostering resilience, adaptability, and inclusivity. Scenario planning also encourages participatory leadership, where community members are engaged in shaping potential futures, empowering them to take ownership of shared challenges and solutions. This approach ensures that leadership strategies are responsive to evolving needs and values, preparing communities to thrive under various future conditions.

User Research, UX Strategies and User-Centered Design  

User-centered design, empowered by scenario planning, enhances empathy and understanding of future user needs by imagining diverse environments, technological developments, and societal movements. This approach enables designers and UX professionals to create more adaptable and inclusive systems that address various needs across potential futures. By exploring scenarios, researchers can anticipate shifts in user behaviors, expectations, and accessibility challenges, leading to more robust research frameworks and adaptive UX strategies. This future-focused mindset not only prompts consideration of edge cases and emerging trends but also ensures that design solutions remain relevant and effective as the world around users evolves.

It is also important to understand how user psychology may change under various future conditions. Scenario planning allows UX professionals to consider different psychological drivers that might arise as societies face technological, economic, environmental and political shifts. Plausible futures, such as those that include increased integration of AI or virtual reality, help UX professionals better anticipate how users might emotionally and cognitively engage with new technologies. Equally, the failure of technologies to deliver on their promise can undermine trust and create doubt about the future that people must navigate.

The foresight provided by scenarios enables designers to explore a range of future psychological needs and tie those needs to practical manifestations of future experiences.

Storytelling through Data 

Data storytelling is about translating complex information into narratives that resonate with an audience. Scenario planning enhances this by allowing professionals to envision how data needs and interpretations might evolve in different futures. Whether it’s adapting to changes in data privacy laws or shifts in how audiences consume visual information, scenario planning helps data storytellers craft narratives that are relevant and impactful across a range of potential futures. This approach ensures that the stories told through data remain compelling and actionable, regardless of the changing context.

The most important lesson from scenario planning, however, is that there is no data from the future. No matter how much someone researches a topic and builds predictive models, uncertainties will remain unaccounted for in those models. Scenario planning creates a framework for exploration where no data exists, outside of that created by the human imagination tempered by insight and practice.

I had a very interesting conversation with a woman on a San Diego Comic-Con panel who talked about computers being able to foretell the future. She worked in manufacturing and used predictive analytics to manage machine maintenance. I asked her what happened when a new machine was introduced. She laughed. “We have to start over with our learning. We can’t predict what will happen with a machine for which we have no experience.”

We experience the future as it unfolds. Data does not flow backward in time (at least not practically, per my physicist friends), so when we get to the edge of our ability to extrapolate from data, we need a process to build credible stories that pick up the narrative where the data leaves off. That is scenario planning’s job.

Crisis Communication

In crisis communication, scenario planning is a key tool for anticipating potential crises and developing tailored communication strategies for each possible outcome. By mapping out different crisis scenarios, organizations can prepare for a range of crises―to practice them―from reputational damage to operational failures, from supply chain disruptions to a leadership faux pas, and ensure that their communication is clear, timely, and effective under each scenario. Scenario planning also allows communicators to explore how crises might evolve over time, helping them develop proactive measures to mitigate risks and manage public perception in high-pressure situations. When tied to strategic planning, scenarios can help anticipate a crisis, and perhaps avoid it.

Law & Policy

Scenario planning adds value to legal and policy studies by helping professionals anticipate how laws and regulations might evolve in response to emerging social, economic, and technological challenges. By considering multiple potential futures—such as advancements in AI, climate change policies, or global trade shifts—lawyers and policymakers can craft more robust and adaptive frameworks that remain relevant in a rapidly changing world. Scenario planning also prepares professionals to navigate legal uncertainties and develop strategies for addressing new challenges as they arise.

Managing Brands

A brand is a story that exists among many other stories. Branding usually focuses on how a brand fits into contemporary narratives. Modern data-driven explorations of customer profiles lead brands to neglect stories about the future. Brand narratives, like content and crisis communications, would benefit from a richer context.

Scenario planning can help brand strategists envision how societal values, consumer expectations, and cultural trends might change in the future, informing creative branding strategies that resonate with these shifts. By considering multiple futures, brands can align their values with evolving social movements or technological advancements, ensuring their creative efforts remain relevant. Scenario planning encourages creativity by pushing brands to think beyond current trends, exploring new possibilities for expressing their identity and fostering deeper connections with audiences, now and in the future.

Ongoing investments in scenario planning can also offer early warning systems to identify tipping points for the collapse of uncertainties into measurable realities or capture new variables that require adjustments and rethinking about how the future might play out.

Planning for the Future of Marketing

Scenario planning brings a forward-looking dimension to marketing principles by enabling marketers to explore how trends such as sustainability, technology, or changing consumer values might shape the future landscape. By considering multiple future scenarios, marketers can develop strategies that are not only responsive to current market conditions but also resilient to potential disruptions or shifts in consumer behavior. This allows for a more adaptive marketing approach that aligns with long-term goals and prepares businesses to thrive in varying economic, social, or technological futures.

Scenario planning is also crucial for exploring future marketing trends and identifying strategies that will be relevant in different market environments. By considering various potential futures, from the rise of immersive technologies like AR and VR to shifting consumer values around sustainability and data privacy, marketers can develop adaptive strategies.

Not only must marketing campaigns and brand messaging resonate with future audiences, the forms of engagement―from devices to channels―must also anticipate change. Scenario planning will not future-proof marketing, but it will help make it more future-ready.

Scenario Planning and Communications: The Final Pitch

Most non-operational aspects of marketing benefit from scenario planning. While a strong scenario planning program will provide more value, even small investments in documenting uncertainty and understanding the value of scenario thinking can help organizations become more agile.

I look forward to engaging with my University of Washington learners and those from industry, governments and not-for-profits to help them build their foresight competencies and their scenario planning skills.

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All images via meta.ai and llama 3 image “imagination,” which needs to learn how to spell.