Peter Schwartz wrote The Art of the Long View where he shows how scenarios from the oil industry can be applied to other areas of life. Schwartz tecahes us on using future scenarios to make better current decisions.

The author wants us all to use scenarios as simulations to help us think in setail, with more accuracy about what might happen next.

Scenario formation starts with Information Hunting and Gathering
The key areas that we must focus upon:
- changes in science and technology;
- perception changing events;
- music; and
- the fringes--what's happening outside the mainstream.

How to discover and learn more about the future:
- Seek out people with remarkable ideas and share insights with them.
- Visit libraries, bookstores, and newsstands to skim widely and read closely what catches your eye or surprises you.
- Immerse yourself in challenging environments through travel--either across the globe or around the block to a new neighborhood.
- Join the electronic network. The explosion of online services allows you to converse with strangers, friends, and experts around the world.

Think the unthinkable:
Where are your blind spots about the future?
Can you imagine events and situations which are "unthinkable" in your vision of the future?

Creating Scenario Building Blocks: Which forces seem most important or uncertain?
- society,
- technology,
- economics,
- politics,
- the natural environment.

These driving forces usually fall into one of two categories:
- predetermined forces: these do not depend on a chain of events to occur, they are already underway.
- critical uncertainties: reasons why we develop several pictures of the future.

Creating the scenario:
How do these forces become a plot?

- What are the driving forces?
- What do you feel is uncertain?
- What is inevitable?
- How about this or that scenario?

Key scenario plots often fall into the same few patterns of converging forces:
- Winners and Losers
- Challenge and Response
- Evolution
- Revolution
- Cycles
- Infinite Possibility
- The Lone Ranger
- My Generation

Rehearsing the Future: How do we communicate the scenarios and actually use them in our strategy?
- Identify specific indicators for each scenario.
- Name each scenario. Choose with care a few words or a key phrase which conveys the logic of the story.
- Revisit the scenarios later. See what you missed, what you anticipated. Revise or rename the scenarios given your new insights.

Scenario planning as a methodology is a virtuous circle and an ongoing process. You keep returning to the beginning with a higher level of understanding of the past and the future. You learn to see many facets of the world at once and make more informed decisions in the present.

[From the Great Books  Series. Also see The Success Manual  - Encyclopedia of Advice, which contains summaries of 100+ Most useful books.]