Prediction and Planning

Abstract

This chapter deals with applying knowledge of the future to personal and organizational planning. It defines the terms “choice” and “alternative” and demonstrates the relation of forecasting to decision making. Introducing the idea of risk management, it lists ways of minimizing the downside consequences of risk. The chapter proceeds to give brief overviews of the most common planning and forecasting techniques, directing readers to textbooks for details on these methods, but emphasizing that each technique assumes a different set of perspectives and goals regarding the future. The chapter continues with observations about the practicality of very long-range plans and forecasting. It concludes by demonstrating why “What do I know about the future?” can be a less useful question than “How fast am I learning more about the future?”

Well, you give me too much credit for foresight and planning.

I haven’t got a clue what the hell I’m doing.

—Novelist Robert B. Parker

This chapter is an update of an address presented at the World Future Society, San Francisco, July, 1997, with added material adapted from Haynes et al. (1996).