Exploring and learning from the future: five steps for avoiding strategic surprises

Purpose – This paper aims to argue that the reason most organizations get blindsided by market transformations is that they undertake strategic planning processes – like scenario development –without seeing them as a unique opportunity for learning about and exploring multiple futures. Design/methodology/approach – The paper demonstrates the Monitor360 approach to learning from scenario development. Findings – The paper reveals that exploring multiple possible ways the future could unfold gives decision‐makers the ability to look in the right place for game‐changing events, to rehearse the appropriate responses and to systematically track indicators of change. Practical implications – The process offers five discrete steps to make scenario planning more effective. The paper explains why each step should be undertaken with a distinct mindset. Originality/value – When planners follow the process described in the paper, which systematically cuts through the barriers to effective group learning and decision making, and combine it with principles that give discipline and robustness to the entire endeavor, the future, and the company's place in it, comes into a much sharper focus.