Process
Our process can be understood as three overlapping phases: Perspectives to Opportunities to Solutions.
Each phase recognizes a distinct set of activities within the broader lifecycle of long-range innovation, although the phases tend to overlap in real life. Often, the start of the process has the highest ambiguity for participants.
Phase I. Perspective
The first phase is to develop historical perspective about an area of interest relevant to the future you want to live in. You must look back first in order to look forward.
What is the bigger context for the topic you are interested in?
What historical events, industry actions, and societal movements can be identified as drivers of today's reality?
When reviewing previous inventions and opportunities, what similarities in timing and adoption exist today?
Phase II. Opportunity
The second phase helps you develop an ability to see growth opportunities that exist today and extend into the future. Today’s opportunities become tomorrow’s innovations.
What themes are emerging that might shape or influence possible opportunities in the future?
Which major changes about people over time, such as population movements and generational shifts, can we identify and understand that affect future changes?
What might you expect from future users and customers?
Phase III. Solution
The third phase seeks to define the questions that exist along different paths to innovation. Innovative solutions are specific to your industry, customers, organization, and individual skills.
How can you determine the multiple paths possible to get from today to tomorrow's future innovation?
Looking at what you've learned, how long does each step take along the various paths?
What are the critical points for change, and which ones are in your control?
Overall, the foresight process begins with exploratory research and abstract representations, moves through to half-formed ideas that begin to take form and gain substance, and ends up with a realizable set of possible solutions. Each phase is progressively more hands-on and concrete, taking you on a gradual journey from open-ended investigation to practical convergence.