For Strategy development and Policy evaluation

Workshops to test robustness of policy scenarios

Strategies and policies are developed to influence the future: hence it is important to evaluate robustness and expected impact based on how the future may unfold.

In order to get the best possible results with the least burden in terms of time for those involved in the workshop, GNKS proposes bounce casting.

What is bounce casting?

Bounce casting is a methodology developed within RAND Corporation to facilitate an exploration that is based on facts about the past, to learn from that past as much as we can. At the same time, we are witnessing a breach in trends that have been quite consistent over many years. And whereas the future is uncertain, by definition, this means we need to be very careful about assessing the potential impact of policy measures, today. Bounce-casting is an approach to explore future-proof solutions in a mixed approach of forecasting and back-casting, that is uniquely suited to our purpose.

In order to test the robustness of policy strategies (sometimes referred to as “policy scenarios”: coherent packages of policy action) against this uncertain future (sometimes referred to as “future scenarios: coherent views on a future world, as described based on trends that are more, or less certain, and where uncertainties may have a larger, or less large impact on how the future develops), scenario gaming with a well-balanced group of stakeholders is probably the most robust way forward. By involving different stakeholders that are shaping the future together, most key aspects will be considered, from different perspectives.

For this, scenario gaming can become quite extensive. Yet for the exploratory purpose of this exercise, and to ensure not too much burden is put on peoples time, rather than building several scenarios, we will build one scenario story, in which we clearly distinguish the key dimensions that relate to important uncertainties with high impact on the future outcome of policies in this field.

1. What people like/dislike overall, and what treats and opportunities they see in that future (SWOT)
2. What are the positive and negative ends for the key dimensions that matter most, and what influences the occurrence of those and determines the future that would be
3. Knowing this, what actions should have been taken “back then (i.e. the actual calendar date of the workshop” to get the best possible outcome “today” (i.e. the day where the scenario story took the workshop)?

By following this approach, there is one compelling story that is set up to consider multiple dimensions. The discussion will touch upon all dimensions and focus on those that seem to have most impact. In this way the moderated discussion will allow the knowledge and experience of participants to truly unfold as there are no predetermined “extremes”, and provide the best possible background to test different policy strategies towards the future.

Personal note:

I hope you enjoy the approach. We have applied it with teams for several projects in the past, and in particular today, where it is difficult to get people to commit for extensive portions of their time to get engaged in policy development and evaluation processes it turns out to be a pleasant and pretty reliable way of collecting input and feedback from a diverse group of stakeholders – not from their positions but bringing the best of their experience and insights “back from the future”.