SELECTING A VARIETY OF FUTURES FOR SCENARIO DEVELOPMENT

Systematic development of future scenarios involves identifying key fa ctors and their different possible values, then selecting combinations of factor values on which to build scenarios. This article recapitula tes basic methods of reducing the number of possible combinations of f actor values by removing futures containing incompatible factor value pairs, then uses probability and cross-impact measures to further elim inate improbable futures. Working with the remaining plausible futures , the aim is to select a small number of them for scenario development in such a way that there is a balance between the factor values explo red. The motivation is to explore possible futures while avoiding unin tentional bias by over-representing some factor values and neglecting others. The tool used is a mathematical formulation that is easily sol ved as an integer linear program. The process is illustrated with a sm all example. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.