Foresight Resources

I offer a range of foresight resources, some to buy and some free ones. All are designed to to help people find and use their foresight capacities in their everyday lives and work.

Books

Foresight Infused Strategy: A How-To Guide for Using Foresight in Practice
Buy on Amazon.

Overview
You will find many books on trends shaping the future, about what the future might look like in ‘x’ number of years, how the foresight field is emerging and the latest methods to use. If that’s what you are looking for, this is not the book for you.

The origins of this book came from my work, where people have often asked how they can start using foresight approaches right now, rather than having to do a course or attend training sessions. The book provides enough information for you to understand what foresight is all about and to identify how you might use the approaches in your organisation.

One of my guiding principles since establishing Thinking Futures in 2007 has been to share information on what I know about using foresight as widely as I can.

My book is published with a Creative Commons License so that it is accessible and usable in practice.

Read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.

Conversations about Futures: A Design Framework for Expanding and Deepening our Thinking about Our Futures
(Coming in March 2023)

Overview
‘The future’ is part of our lives. We plan for it every day. We think about it, sometimes with hope, and sometimes with despair. We hold an image of ‘the future’ in our minds that influences our thinking, our assumptions about the present, and our actions today – even if we don’t recognise this influence. When that single future fails to emerge as we had planned – whether tacitly or overtly – we often experience an emotional response: sadness, hopelessness, anxiety, anger and even fear. Something we wanted did not eventuate –sometimes because the world changes around us and disrupts our plans, sometimes because what we really wanted to happen just didn’t happen. We are plunged into a space of uncertainty and fear for ‘the future’. Our desired futures are disrupted, often gone forever. What to do now?

My aim in writing this book is to explore how we can expand and deepen our individual and collective conversations about futures by surfacing and using our innate foresight capacities. Finding our foresight allows us to imagine futures and act today to make them real, or to mitigate their emergence. Foresight – and the futures literacy skills that it generates once visible – is critical if we are to be able to address the global, civilisational challenges we face today, and imagine into existence truly sustainable futures for me, you, our organisations and the planet.

Preview chapters coming soon.

Strategic Futures Guides

My guides are detailed introductions to particular aspects of using foresight in practice. They are not comprehensive guides but are rather intended to help people new to foresight to being using foresight. The guides aim to provide a more in depth understanding of the context that exists when you are using foresight - something most other guides miss.

I have published these guides to assist people who want to move to the next level of of futures thinking by using their foresight consciously. They are based on what I wished I had known when I was asked to integrate futures work into the planning framework at an Australian university in 1999. I had to look up ‘foresight’ on Google to find out what I was dealing with, and I’m hoping these guides will save you that step in your futures journey!

My organization is a nonprofit social service agency that has been operating under a strategic planning process for the last 4 years. We are looking now to infuse the organization with information on thinking strategically - to support and/or supersede the planning process and the information in your document is perfect for our level of need on the topic. Glenda Buzzelli, Catholic Charities, Diocese of Cleveland

I have published these guides to assist people who want to move to the next level of of futures thinking by using their foresight consciously. They are based on what I wished I had known when I was asked to integrate futures work into the planning framework at an Australian university in 1999. I had to look up ‘foresight’ on Google to find out what I was dealing with, and I’m hoping these guides will save you that step in your futures journey!

To buy the Guides, you click on the red button below your choice, pay via Stripe, and you will be redirected back to a download page here on Foresight in the Present.

Environmental Scanning: What it is and how to do it
$8.95 (AUD, GST Free)

This guide is designed to provide you with enough information to understand the critical steps you need to follow to set up an effective environmental scanning program in your organisation.

Environmental scanning in a strategic sense is about building a global context for your work, your organisation, your competitive environment and your industry. It is about recognising that the future is unlikely to be anything like the past, and that we therefore need to spend some time understanding the trends and likely influencers on the future of our organisations.  High quality scanning is the core of effective futures work.

I have put this guide together to assist people who want to move to the next level of strategy development – beyond formulaic strategic planning.  It is based on what I wished I had known when I was asked to integrate futures work into the planning framework at an Australian university in 1999. I had to look up ‘foresight’ on google to find out what I was dealing with, and I’m hoping this guide will save you that step in your futures journey!

Contents
Preface
Using this Guide
Part 1: Setting up your Scanning System
Part 2: Doing Environment System
Part 3: Interpreting and Reporting your Scanning
Finally: Keep Going
References
Need Help? Questions? Contact Foresight Futures
Trend Report Template

Once I receive confirmation of payment, I will email the Guide to your inbox.

Foresight: An Introduction
An overview guide that provides an introduction to using foresight thinking, frameworks and processes in practice. It is aimed at people new to foresight and includes some lessons I’ve learned in the more than 20 years I’ve been using foresight.

Contents
Introduction
About Foresight
About Foresight and Strategy
About Foresight Methods
Using Foresight Approaches
Lessons from the Field
References and Resources

Once I receive confirmation of payment, I will email the Guide to your inbox.

Free Downloads

Some papers and case studies about using foresight in practice. Free to download here.

Questions about the Resources?

Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the Guides before or after you purchase one.