Decision-Making in Uncertain Times. Leveraging Scenario Planning and Probabilistic Thinking

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In the past, leaders made choices relying on straightforward predictions, like estimating steady 5% growth each year. But when unexpected events occurred, reality diverged drastically from predictions. For example, a company might reject the uncertainty of a shifting market landscape, confidently projecting stable demand. Yet disruptive new competitors and technologies then emerge, upending their forecasts and plans.

Organizations need to accept uncertainty as normal when making decisions today. Rather than rejecting uncertainty or failing to account for it in singular predictions, they should incorporate potential variability into their planning.

Why Uncertainty Matters Today

Uncertainty refers to difficulty in assigning probabilities to future outcomes. It is distinct from risk, which assumes event likelihoods are quantifiable. For example, risk would be estimating a 60% chance of rain based on weather data. Uncertainty would be difficulty predicting weather far in the future due to climate change.

There is more uncertainty today than ever before because of:

• The fast pace of change in technology, markets, regulations, and society
• Increasing connections between systems that make effects less predictable
• The past being less useful for predicting unprecedented futures
• More unexpected events disrupting existing patterns
• Growing complexity in the economy, politics, and the environment

Old ways of making decisions don't work as well anymore. In the past, leaders made choices based on experience and single predictions of the future. But the world is changing faster than ever before. Unexpected events are happening more often. This makes the old approaches unreliable.

Leaders need new tools to make good decisions when the future is unclear. Two useful frameworks are Scenario Planning and Probabilistic Thinking. Using these can help organizations succeed even when things are unpredictable.

Exploring Possibilities with Scenario Planning

Scenario planning is a technique for decision-making under uncertainty. It evaluates a range of plausible future scenarios and assesses options under each.