UNGP - Foresight Initiative

Browse Foresight Tools

Find a selection of tools, games and workshop templates, ready to be used for your own foresight projects.

UNGP - Foresight Initiative

Featured Tools

Featured tools

  • Collaboration, Game, Scenarios, Sensemaking

Scenario Exploration System: The Future of Data Governance

A simulation game to navigate through several futures of data governance and facilitate a fun and dynamic discussion on the potential pathways of changes.
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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Discussion, Game, Scenarios, Visioning

FutureCast

This workshop format takes participants through interactive rounds to respond to questions and trigger conversations about how the future might evolve during and after an electoral period.
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  • Methods and Approaches

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  • Discussion, HorizonScanning, Integration, Workshop

Horizon Scanning: Implications

This online template is developed to facilitate discussions during your horizon scanning process. It can be used to identify needs that emerge if the drivers of change materialise and the potential implications.
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  • Discussion, HorizonScanning, Integration, Workshop

Horizon Scanning: Implications

A workshop to facilitate discussions on policies

What is it?

This online template is developed to facilitate discussions during your horizon scanning process. It can be used to identify  needs that emerge if the drivers of change materialise and the potential (policy) implications that could arise from these needs.

Use it to

  • Make the link between the drivers of change and policymaking
  • Engage policymakers in a futures dialogue
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Acknowledgments

UNGP

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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Discussion, Exploration, Guide, HorizonScanning, Scenarios, Template

Futures Wheel

A visualisation of direct and indirect future consequences of drivers and events. A structured brainstorming on chains of “if, then” statements, from isolated signals to complex forecasts about possible futures.
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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Discussion, Exploration, Guide, HorizonScanning, Scenarios, Template

Futures Wheel

A tool to explore possible implications

What is it?

This tool is a graphic visualisation of direct and indirect future consequences of a particular driver, event or issue. It is a structured brainstorming on chains of “if, then” statements. It helps move from isolated signals and possibilities to more complex forecasts about possible futures.

Use it to

  • Transform specific observations into robust chains of statements
  • Organise thinking and questioning about the future
  • Visualise complex relationships between events
  • Deepen your understanding of a driver after the horizon scanning process
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Acknowledgments

Adaptation from Jerome C. Glenn (1994) from The Millennium Project

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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Collaboration, Imagining, Scenarios, Template, Workshop

2×2 Matrix: Scenario Building

A scenario-building methodology to draft four different scenarios based on two key uncertainties and create plausible alternative stories about the future.
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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Collaboration, Imagining, Scenarios, Template, Workshop

2x2 Matrix: Scenario Building

A toolkit to develop future stories

What is it?

This tool is used to create plausible alternative stories about the future. The 2×2 matrix is a straightforward scenario-building methodology to draft four different scenarios based on two key uncertainties. This toolkit contains a facilitation guide, a participant handout and a workshop template to run your workshop.

Use it to

  • Explore different ways the future might unfold
  • Introduce participants to scenario thinking 
  • Build upon the driver mapping exercise
DOWNLOAD THE TOOL

Acknowledgments

Adaptation from Scenario Building: The 2×2 Matrix Technique by Alun Rhydderch

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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Collaboration, Scenarios, Sensemaking, Template, Workshop

Causal Layered Analysis

A sensemaking approach to creating futures. It consists of four levels of analysis: the surface understanding of an issue, the causes creating the situation, the perspectives shaping it and the underlying stories.
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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Collaboration, Scenarios, Sensemaking, Template, Workshop

Causal Layered Analysis

A toolkit to create alternative futures

What is it?

Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) is a four-level sensemaking approach to creating new futures. It takes participants through four levels of analysis: the surface understanding of an issue, the causes creating and sustaining the situation, the different perspectives shaping it and the underlying stories that might feed it. This toolkit contains a workshop template and a participant handout.

Use it to

  • Support the development of rich scenario narratives
  • Facilitate a multi-cultural discussion about the future 
  • Understand the roots behind our assumptions
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Acknowledgments

Adaptation of technique by Sohail Inayatullah

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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Discussion, DriverMapping, Exploration, Template, Workshop

Driver Mapping

This method is used to identify and prioritise the drivers having the biggest impact on the future. The toolkit contains a facilitation guide, a participant handout and a template to run your workshop.
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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Discussion, DriverMapping, Exploration, Template, Workshop

Driver Mapping

A toolkit to identify the key issues shaping the future

What is it?

This method is used to identify and prioritise the drivers having the biggest impact on the future. The toolkit contains a facilitation guide, a participant handout and a template to run your workshop.

Use it to

  • Facilitate a foundational discussion on the key drivers of the future
  • Understand how drivers may play out in different ways in the future
  • Prepare for a scenario-building workshop
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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Discussion, Game, Scenarios, Visioning

FutureCast

This workshop format takes participants through interactive rounds to respond to questions and trigger conversations about how the future might evolve during and after an electoral period.
Read More
UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Discussion, Game, Scenarios, Visioning

FutureCast

A workshop format to explore the pathways of change

What is it?

This workshop format takes participants through three interactive rounds to respond to questions and trigger conversations about how the future might evolve during and after an electoral period. It contains editable and customisable workshop templates, facilitation guides and notes taking templates.

Use it to

  • Explore risks and opportunities in an election context
  • Identify ways of amplifying or mitigating trends
  • Help to anticipate dynamics in the broader political and human rights context 
  • Engage various stakeholders
PLAY THE GAME

Acknowledgments

UNGP

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  • Collaboration, Game, Scenarios, Sensemaking

Scenario Exploration System: The Future of Data Governance

A simulation game to navigate through several futures of data governance and facilitate a fun and dynamic discussion on the potential pathways of changes.
Read More
  • Collaboration, Game, Scenarios, Sensemaking

Scenario Exploration System: The Future of Data Governance

A board game to explore scenarios

What is it?

This tool to spark future dialogues allows you to navigate through three rounds of several futures of data governance and facilitate a fun and dynamic discussion on the futures implications. All the material needed to run the game is ready to download.

Use it to

  • Engage a variety of stakeholders
  • Strengthen long-term and strategic thinking
  • Provide a safe space for dialogue
  • Focus on action-consequence relations
PLAY THE GAME

Acknowledgments

Adaptation of “Scenario Exploration System” by The JRC, licensed under CC BY SA

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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Analysis, DriverMapping, Scenarios, Scoping, Template, Workshop

Foresight For Systems Change

A training package to build knowledge, skills, and peer-to-peer learning. The programme has 4 modules: scoping, ordering, investigating implications and integrating insights from your futures and foresight project.
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UNGP - Foresight Initiative
  • Analysis, DriverMapping, Scenarios, Scoping, Template, Workshop

Foresight For Systems Change

A workshop format to explore the pathways of change

What is it?

A training package to build knowledge, skills, and peer-to-peer learning. The programme has 4 modules: scoping, ordering, investigating implications and integrating insights from your futures and foresight project.

Use it to

  • Discover what strategic foresight is and how it can be used in your work
  • Learn multiple methods to identify trends and drivers of change, building future scenarios, manage risk, enhance organisational agility, and inform policy
  • Understand how to commission, design or lead foresight projects to support systems transformation and Our Common Agenda
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Acknowledgments

UNGP, SOIF, ITC ILO

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