Preparing for the future with strategic foresight

This guidance is for courts interested in future ready planning and is adapted from "Building future ready courts." Refer to the complete guide to learn about and work through our future ready courts framework. 

What is strategic foresight?

Strategic foresight is a planning discipline that helps us think rigorously and systematically about the future. Rather than trying to predict the future, it considers many plausible futures. One possibility, for instance, is that the future might be very similar to what we have today with only a few changes. However, strategic foresight also asks us to consider futures where current trends have substantially changed compared to today. The importance of this approach "is to understand the possibilities ahead in order to make more informed decisions in the present."¹

It's easy to become focused on what is right in front of us and overlook the bigger picture which could significantly impact our future readiness. Making time to intentionally explore the bigger picture is the purpose of the FRC framework's strategic foresight activities. 

Discovering key drivers of change 

Consider the emerging trends that might impact what courts do and how they do it. We may have the perfect continuity of operations plan in place to weather a major hurricane, but will that plan work if several hurricanes hit a broad region of the country at the same time? How will the court cope if the resources expected from neighboring states are not available?

Exploring what might be happening more broadly could impact the community and ultimately affect court operations and performance in serving the community. How can we prepare for disruptions like that of the CrowdStrike outage which took down IT systems across the world if we do not consider the possibility?² On the flip side, what opportunities might present themselves to provide more effective training options through virtual reality simulations and other emerging technologies for those who work in our court systems, develop predictive analytics to improve case processing and inform decision making, increase security through biometric verification or other advancements, enhance transparency by providing real time access to publicly available court data, and create user-friendly resources and compelling stories to inform the public about the role of courts in our democracy?

A common method to begin exploring the future is referred to as horizon scanning. This process involves a systematic exploration of the external environment to detect emerging trends and early signs of change across a broad spectrum of areas, e.g., social, technological, economic, environmental, political, and legal sectors.

Review & adapt drivers of change

Imagining alternative scenarios

Scenario development based on drivers of change assists us in developing shared, plausible, and coherent visions of the future.³ Scholar and entrepreneur Paul Schoemaker praises scenarios as the stand-out tool challenging the prevailing mindset and compensating for the usual errors in our attempts to think strategically – tunnel vision in the range of changes we believe are possible or overconfidence about future trends.⁴

Good scenarios are both creative and challenging, identify blind spots, and expose readers to information and new ways of thinking about issues.⁵ Additionally, a scenario should describe the future in a way that readers understand what it is like to live in this world and what events might have led to its development.⁶ Although no specific scenario will come true, aspects of different futures are plausible.⁷ This strategic foresight activity involves envisioning ourselves in alternative scenarios and contemplating how our core business functions and operations could change in the near and far future and how the various drivers of change might interact to impact the courts. 

Develop & explore future scenarios for your court

Analyzing implications 

It's important to explore patterns or themes that emerge across the scenarios, even though the specifics of each scenario differ. Identifying common elements across scenarios can reveal broader implications of various futures for courts. 

There are several approaches for synthesizing information across scenarios.⁸ For example, you could undertake an analysis of the various strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats each scenario presents and compare them across scenarios to identify common themes. Are there common strengths and weaknesses across the scenarios? Do recurring opportunities and universal threats manifest across scenarios? Do the same driving forces that create a threat in one scenario also present an opportunity in another? It is important to examine these questions with people who have a variety of perspectives to uncover emerging themes not immediately evident at the beginning of your conversations. 

Assess risks, opportunities & impacts