My goal is to identify developments in the future that could have significant implications for you, the organization you work for, or where you live. For many years I helped multinationals create future scenarios to improve their strategy decision-making. Scenarios developed with good technique will generate special insight about what could happen in the future. In this blog, I use that technique to identify the ranges of plausible outcomes for emerging issues that will define our future.

I want to bring an issue to your attention in such a way and early enough so you as an individual or organizational leader are better prepared to act.

If you would like to organize a discussion about an issue, learn more about the techniques involved in creating scenarios and developing foresights about the future, or would like to apply those techniques to an emerging issue important to you, please contact me.

Bill Ralston, bill.ralston@icloud.com

More About Me

I worked at Brown & Root and SRI International and co-founded Strategic Business Insights, a spin off of SRI that provides insights about emerging threats and opportunities for multinationals and government agencies. I started off as an engineer, helping to design and build oil and gas facilities around the world. I then consulted to energy companies and civil infrastructure operators on strategy, technology, and business issues, moved into consulting on what businesses and government agencies should do about environmental, health, and safety issues, and eventually became a corporate futurist, helping management teams develop scenarios of the future for the major issues they were facing. Throughout my career I have been learning how to focus on the uncertainties of complex environments and identify the full range of plausible outcomes for those uncertainties. Thomson published a book I co-authored with my scenario planning colleague, Ian Wilson, based on our experiences working with corporate strategy teams: The Scenario Planning Handbook: Developing Strategies in Uncertain Times. It’s still in print and available on Amazon, providing sufficient royalties to pay for daily visits to the local coffee house.