Starting 2026 with Foresight

The new year is in full swing, with organizations across the country busy setting and getting after their plans for the next 1, 3, and 10 years.  Part of that process needs to include some focused foresight work.

Foresight is insight into how and why the future could be different from the present.  It’s a type of insight.  We spend time and energy developing foresight because we want to identify the risks and opportunities that are continually emerging ahead of us – before they fully emerge and become a fire to fight or the anguish of a badly missed opportunity.

Foresight work is different from just “any old” meeting to talk about the next few months or the latest top of mind issue.  The formal foresight work that firms like VFS perform starts with a broad view of the ways in which society is changing, looks further ahead than most planning horizons, and uses that as the starting point for working with clients to forecast the different ways in which their own industry or issue could change over the next several years.

If your team has not yet blocked in time for some focused foresight work, then we would suggest one of the following three options, each of which is easily doable for most small to mid-size organizations.

1. Simple Internal Session (easiest): schedule a two-hour meeting, have each member of your team bring to the session information or articles about clear trends across the STEEP categories, then sort and discuss the short and long-term implications for your current strategy.

2. Custom-Developed Scenario Forecasts (light lift): tap a foresight firm to develop a set of original, comprehensive forecasts tailored to one of your organization’s key strategic concerns.  They work with your team, but they do the heavy lifting of developing the scenarios.

3. Foresight Workshops (best outcomes): a comprehensive foresight process that directly engages your leadership team in developing their own original scenarios about the future.  A highly participatory process that creates a new, shared understanding of the future and new patterns of thinking.

Each of these three options provides a useful starting point for structured, ongoing discussions about the constantly changing emerging landscape.

Keep in mind that foresight work does not need to be complicated, but it does need to be done consistently and frequently.

Reach out to us today to learn more about the pros and cons of these options and to discuss how VFS can help your team with them.