Creative Rigor: The TBD Futures Process
The power of Creative Rigor through the combined disciplines of Design and Strategic Foresight is at the core of TBD’s approach. Why? These two disciplines complement and amplify each other’s strength. How? Through a meticulous process of research, analysis, scenario-building, ideation, and strategic planning. Let’s break it down step by step.
Note that I’ll use “creativity” instead of “design” where possible to avoid confusion with the typical perception of “design” in its narrower sense as an executional function with its own process and tasks.
1. Trend Research & Analyses
We use a combined framework called CC-STEEP (Competitive, Consumer/Customers, Societal, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political). This covers the usual strategy and design research, plus Strategic Foresight’s macro-trend types. The STEEP framework ensures we look at future outcomes with the consideration of important factors beyond just what the competitors are doing and what the customers tell us. Meanwhile, the Consumer/Customer trends keep us grounded in human centricity, recognizing that the future is shaped by dynamic forces, including human behaviors and expectations.
We don’t just analyze current trends with strong signals; we also look at emerging trends formed with weak signals. This lets us project further into the future, not just an immediate one. Emerging trends are like undercurrents beneath the water surface in a river, caused by factors such as the riverbed formation, upstream flow, wind, and rainfall. You might see weak signals only as small bubbles now, but they could become larger waves in the future. A creative mindset helps us suspend judgment and stay open to these possibilities, while data-informed analyses ensure that we base our focus on facts.
2. Multiple Future Scenario Building
Multi-scenario building is one core differentiator of Strategic Foresight, even compared with other Futures practices. Creativity acts as a synthesizer, creative writer, and visual storyteller, making these scenarios cohesive, distinct, believable, and immersive. It’s like writing a screenplay, depicting the opening scene of a sci-fi movie, or painting concept art of an imaginary world.
A well-built scenario can draw the audience in, help them suspend disbelief, and make them feel compelled to participate in the creation of this new world. Creativity is more than a fun exercise but a purposeful application to build the stages for real solutions to be born.
Read more about the magic of storytelling in scenario building, and the hidden power in exploring risky scenarios.
3. Futures Ideation
Creativity gets a boost here with the multi-scenario setup. One hundred ideas in a typical current-to-future-state ideation session could become three hundred in three future scenarios. Strategic Foresight multiplies our divergent creativity, producing a wider and deeper set of solutions.
Two magical things happen: 1) We may find cross-cutting solutions in multiple scenarios, indicating high-potential opportunities, and 2) We get clearer about the future we prefer and what it takes to make it happen, prompting us to take action now. Creativity is used here for direct and measurable business impact.
4. Futures Strategies
As visions crystallize into actionable strategies, uncertainty transforms into agency. Our roadmaps pave the way towards preferred future outcomes, empowering proactive steps while remaining adaptable to evolving trends. We continuously monitor the horizon to ensure strategic alignment as the future unfolds.
While the rigorous strategic planning process provides creativity a guardrail to be carried out, the flexibility in creativity keeps supporting the planning and adjusting process, ensuring agility in future-forward strategies.
To summarize, it’s a marriage of two disciplines that already share the foundation for research, ambiguity, and actionability. They supercharge each other by leveraging and multiplying their powers so Design becomes more rigorous, and Strategy more creative.
At TBD Futures, we believe this is what’s next for Design, the secret sauce for it to be further elevated and better valued, and how we can all access both sides of the brain to have fun while making better decisions.
What do you think about this approach? What would you do differently in this process? What part of this can be particularly helpful for your organization’s growth?
Special thanks to my longtime mentor, Jamer Hunt, who used the phrase “rigorous creativity” when we discussed the future-forward approach to design and problem-solving. He emphasized, and I couldn’t agree more, that design and creativity are inherently future-forward, while the rigor involved might often be overlooked due to its qualitative and hard-to-measure nature.
Additional reads: Academic research on the integration of Design and Foresight
Foresight and Design: New Support for Strategic Decision Making “Decision makers who plan, decide, and act to influence change need to rely on a new, emerging approach to the future in the increasingly turbulent environments they face today.” by Joern Buehring and Peter C. Bishop https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405872620300423
A Process Model Integrating Design Thinking and Strategic Foresight Stephanidis, C., Antona, M., Ntoa, S., Salvendy, G. (eds) HCI International 2023 Posters. HCII 2023. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1832. Springer, Cham. Serio, J.D. (2023). Design & Futures – https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35989-7_16
A Futures-Design-Process Model for Participatory Futures “Designing the future consciously means creating freedom to think and try the impossible. It includes the constant reassessment of results and the responsibility for one’s own actions. Despite the wicked problems we face, and the awareness that there is not simply one right solution, a moderate optimism can ignite hope for a better future.” Stefanie A. Ollenburg Freie Universität Berlin Germany https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stuart-Candy/publication/338129083_Design_and_Futures/links/5e016748a6fdcc28373a78cf/Design-and-Futures.pdf