Collaborative Foresight

In these times of polycrisis, of transformations and disruptions, we need new ways to come together to meet and create new possibilities. And in the Media Evolution community of professionals, we hear from many different disciplines and industries a desire and a need to become better at working with change, uncertainty and the long-term.

Why Collaborative Foresight?

Collaboration for the sake of futures

Collaborative Foresight is about bringing together different perspectives to explore and imagine multiple plausible, possible, desirable, and even impossible futures. We do this to help us all become better at relating to and shaping change, navigating risk, finding opportunities, and thriving—as professionals, as organisations and as a community.

The work is built on the belief that tomorrow will be better for all, provided that more people can take part in intentionally imagining and making sense of it.

We believe in demystifying and democratising futures and foresight. Anyone can develop a foresight practice, and strengthen their skills in exploring change and uncertainty in systematic, creative and critical ways. This work is most effective when done collectively: within a team or organisation, across different disciplines, among people from different walks of life. And capacity builds confidence, which results in people feeling ownership, hope and commitment to shaping their futures.

Also, ‘future’ is a great meeting place for different perspectives and experiences as no-one can claim expertise over it. In working with the future, we can come together and lay ground for mutual understanding and potential collaborations – that can in turn actively shape the future.

Strengthening capacities to work with the future

Collaborative Foresight is about building individual and organisational futures literacy. It works to address what Geoff Mulgan calls “the crisis of social imagination” by practicing the imagining, sharing and anchoring of futures within a team or organisation, or in other settings in which people from different backgrounds come together. By working with futures in an intentional, imaginative and transformative way, we see people becoming more active in working with change – in relation to their personal futures, an organization's futures, or our shared futures on this planet.

Collaborative Foresight Principles

Collaborative Foresight rests on three principles. These principles are interlinked and show up in different ways in the practice of Collaborative Foresight.

1. Futures are plural

The future does not exist. What does exist are ideas, decisions and infrastructures inherited from the past, and the conditions and intentions of the present. Rather than trying to predict the future, we instead make sense of the past, observe the present, and imagine multiple plausible, possible, desirable and even preposterous futures—and then ask, together, how we could and might relate to change in light of what we’ve learned.

2. Futures are imagined

Our assumptions about the future shape what we consider possible and desirable; those assumptions then impact our actions, which in turn shape the future. Collaborative Foresight approaches the collective and individual assumptions we hold about the future with curiosity. In doing so, we become more conscious of our biases, and better at imagining possibilities.

3. Futures are created

Our collective, organisations and individual actions shape the future. Some people have more power and influence than others, but no one is omnipotent—and we can all find ways to change the story. Collaborative Foresight is about opening that space of possibility with more people with different perspectives, and growing our collective agency to make change towards many desirable futures.

Collaborative Foresight in Practice

The Collaborative Foresight process is highly contextual: it depends upon the place, the time, and the people who participate. This is why Collaborative Foresight guidelines and tools should be always adapted to the circumstance, question, or community at hand. At Media Evolution, we continuously develop the approach: practicing, iterating, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding—but always learning.

Collaborative Foresight trainings and courses

We offer training and courses that equip individuals, teams and organisations to apply Collaborative Foresight to their own work, processes and methods. Contact Reeta for more information.

Collaborative Foresight for Teams

This is a method developed specifically for teams to surface actionable futures-based insights on their work. It's a four-step process that uses Collaborative Foresight to uncover possible, desirable and unknown futures around a focus or topic of their choice. During a half-day workshop, the participating team imagines and reflects on the impact of multiple developments, visions and uncertainties related to their work and context.

The process helps the team to reveal new perspectives and opportunities, and to align on how to work with the future going forward. Furthermore, Collaborative Foresight for Teams helps the team to create a shared language around the future, and strengthens team competencies in foresight and futures thinking. The workshop results in a set of key insights, and a roadmap of actions for the team to take forward. Learn more and download the playbook for hosting a workshop here.

Collaborative Foresight cycles

Collaborative Foresight cycles are sustained processes that focus on particular topics, which leverage the power of combining different perspectives and experiences. Media Evolution has hosted ten cycles on numerous topics, including futures of AI for sustainability, digital work, infrastructure, wise cities, sound and song, digital urban layers, creative expression, wellbeing.

A Collaborative Foresight cycle engages hundreds of people interested and engaged in the topic in different ways and depths, and often consists of the following elements:

• Opening seminar: a public seminar combining foresight expertise and practice perspectives with experience and knowledge specific to the topic.
• Open Signal Scanning workshop: an invitation to the community to share, map and discuss signals, trends and drivers impacting the future of the topic;
• Core Group workshops: up to four days of workshops in which a group of 20–30 experts, practitioners, students, researchers and others spend time together making sense of the dynamics of change, creating scenarios of possible futures, exploring alternatives, and developing desirable visions of the topic, as well as uncovering ways in which to shape and adapt to change.
• Open Community Critique workshop: a workshop in which community members are invited to consider, give feedback and discuss the draft scenarios of possible futures created by the core group.
• Closing seminar: a public seminar sharing perspectives, insights, futures and questions emerging from the workshops, and hosting speakers who can build on the ideas explored during the cycle.
• A book (physical and/or digital): a publication that brings together some of the futures and perspectives that emerged in the process, and sends them out into the world for others to build on. We often work with fictional stories that bring the cycle’s imagined futures to life, in order to invite more people to visit, rehearse and reflect on them.