Scenario Planning: A Tool for Strategic Thinking

1 WINTER 1995 Paul J. H. SchoemakerScenarioPlanning: A Toolfor StrategicThinkingAmong the many tools a manager can use for strategicplanning, Scenario planning stands out for its ability tocapture a whole range of possibilities in rich detail. Byidentifying basic trends and uncertainties, a manager canconstruct a series of scenarios that will help to compensate forthe usual errors in decision making overconfidence andtunnel vision. Through case studies of Interpublic, aninternational advertising agency, and Anglo-AmericanCorporation in South Africa, the author describes how tobuild scenarios in a step-by-step process and how to use theresulting stories to plan a company s 36, No. 2 Reprint #3622 in this century, it was unclear how airplaneswould affect naval warfare. When BrigadierGeneral Billy Mitchell proposed that airplanesmight sink battleships by dropping bombs on them, Secretary of War Newton Baker remarked, Thatidea is so damned nonsensical and impossible that I mwilling to stand on the bridge of a battleship while thatnitwit tries to hit it from the air.

2 Josephus Daniels, Secre-tary of the Navy, was also incredulous: Good God! Thisman should be writing dime novels. Even the prestigiousScientific American proclaimed in 1910 that to affirmthat the aeroplane is going to revolutionize naval war-fare of the future is to be guilty of the wildest exaggera-tion. 1In hindsight, it is difficult to appreciate why air power spotential was unclear to so many. But can we predict thefuture any better than these defense leaders did? We areaffected by the same biases they were. It was probably ashard for them to evaluate the effect of airplanes in the1920s as it is for us to assess the impact over the nextdecades of multimedia, the human genome project,biotechnology, artificial intelligence, organ transplants,superconductivity, space colonization, and myriad otherdevelopments.

3 The myopic statements in the sidebar re-mind us how frequently smart people have made thewrong assumptions about the future with great who can expand their imaginations to see awider range of possible futures will be much better posi-tioned to take advantage of the unexpected opportunitiesthat will come along. And managers today have some-thing those defense leaders did not have scenarioplanning. Unfortunately, too few companies use it. Ifonly General Motors in the seventies had explored morefully the consequences of OPEC, the yuppie generation,globalization, environmentalism, and the importance ofquality and speed in manufacturing; or IBM and DigitalEquipment Corporation in the eighties, the full impactof the personal computer, which prompted the break-down of the vertically integrated mainframe business and ashift toward distributed computing.

4 Other examplesabound: Federal Express s fiascos in Europe, Philips s set-back in electronic markets (despite its leading-edge tech-nologies), Disney s union and image problems with itstheme park in France, Sony in movies, planning is a disciplined method for imagin-ing possible futures that companies have applied to agreat range of issues. Royal Dutch/Shell has used scenar-ios since the early 1970s as part of a process for generat-ing and evaluating its Strategic Shell has beenconsistently better in its oil forecasts than other major oilcompanies, and first saw the overcapacity in the tankerbusiness and Europe s petrochemicals. In the early 1980s,Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa convened aninternational group of experts to explore South Africa sAMONG THE MANY TOOLS A MANAGER CAN USE FOR Strategic planning , SCE-NARIO planning STANDS OUT FOR ITS ABILITY TO CAPTURE A WHOLE RANGE OFpossibilities in rich detail.

5 By identifying basic trends and uncertainties, a managercan construct a series of scenarios that will help to compensate for the usual errors indecision making overconfidence and tunnel vision. Through case studies ofInterpublic, an international advertising agency, and Anglo-American Corporation inSouth Africa, the author describes how to build scenarios in a step-by-step processand how to use the resulting stories to plan a company s future. 1 Paul Schoemaker is the chair-man of Decision Strategies Interna-tional, Inc., and a professor in thedepartment of operations and infor-mation management, The WhartonSchool, University of Pennsylvania. Scenario planning : A Tool forStrategic ThinkingPaul Schoemakerfuture through scenarios , which pro-vided a catalyst for profound politicalreform (as I explain later).

6 3 Even theDutch Central planning Bureau, a lead-ing government agency traditionallywedded to econometrics and time seriesanalyses, issued wide-ranging, twenty-five-year global I havepersonally developed scenarios withclients to estimate future environmen-tal liability, anticipate health-care costcontainment and regulatory control,assess the consequences of deregulationin electric utilities, determine the shift-ing dimensions of competition in fi-nancial services, develop a Strategic vi-sion for an R&D division, help WallStreet analysts see future changes in theindustries they track, and so forth. Although Scenario planning has beenexamined by academics and describedby practitioners, no previous article hassought to bridge the theory and try to fill the gap by presenting asystematic methodology, with illustra-tions drawn from practice, that explainsthe rationale and process of scenarioplanning.

7 A planning ToolSuppose you are planning to climb a mountain. Previousplanning would provide you a detailed map describingthe constant elements of the terrain. Of course, this tra-ditional planning tool is very valuable and, indeed, in-dispensable in this case. Just as geographical mapping isan honored art and science, so corporate mapping canbe very useful. However, it is incomplete. First, it is adistorted representation ( , any two-dimensional mapdistorts the earth s surface). Second, it ignores the vari-able elements, such as weather, landslides, animals, andother hikers. The most important of these uncertaintiesis probably the weather, and one option is to gather de-tailed meteorological data of past seasons, perhaps usingcomputer , Scenario planning goes one step further.

8 Itsimplifies the avalanche of data into a limited numberof possible states. Each Scenario tells a story of how vari-ous elements might interact under certain relationships between elements can be formal-ized, a company can develop quantitative models. Itshould evaluate each Scenario for internal consistencyand plausibility; for example, high visibility and heavysnowdrifts are an implausible combination. Although ascenario s boundary might at times be fuzzy, a detailedand realistic narrative can direct your attention to aspectsyou would otherwise overlook. Thus a vivid snowdriftscenario (with low visibility) may highlight the need forskin protection, goggles, food supplies, radio, shelter,and so planning differs from other planning meth-ods, such as contingency planning , sensitivity analysis,and computer simulations.

9 First, contingency planningexamines only one uncertainty, such as What if we don tget the patent? It presents a base case and an exceptionor contingency. scenarios explore the joint impact ofvarious uncertainties, which stand side by side as equals. Second, sensitivity analysis examines the effect of achange in one variable, keeping all other variables con-stant. Moving one variable at a time makes sense forsmall changes. For instance, we might ask what will hap-pen to oil demand if the gross national product increasesjust a fraction of a percent, keeping everything else con-26 SCHOEMAKERSLOANMANAGEMENTREVIEW/WINTER19 95 They Believed It Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. Lord Kelvin, British mathematician, physicist, and president of the British Royal Society,c.

10 1895 With over fifty foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn t likelyto carve out a big slice of the market for itself. business Week, 2 August 1968 A severe depression like that of 1920-1921 is outside the range of probability. The Harvard Economic Society, 16 November 1929 I think there is a world market for about five computers. Thomas J. Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. Ken Olson, president, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977 We don t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out. Decca Recording Co. executive, turning down the Beatles in 1962 The phonograph .. is not of any commercial value. Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of the phonograph, c. 1880 No matter what happens, the Navy is not going to be caught napping.