Futurist Joe Coates has a chart on his Web site that compares futurists, internal staff planners and mainstream consultants for purposes of business planning. You can check out the chart yourself, but just to give you the flavor, I’ll post a few of the differences:
Futurists: Attention to wild cards and discontinuities
Internal business group: Continuity assumption dominates
Mainstream consultancy: Continuity assumption dominates
Futurists: Speak the unspeakable
Internal business group: Uncongenial thoughts/ideas are suppressed
Mainstream consultancy: May or may not explore the uncongenial
Futurists: Emphasize alternative futures
Internal business group: A single future often dominates
Mainstream consultancy: Weighted towards the experts’ most likely future
Futurists: The future dominates the recommended actions
Internal business group: Past experience and present concerns dominate
Mainstream consultancy: Historical industry data and case studies support the recommendations
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