What is 4 Steps to the Future?

The short answer is a process for developing four divergent scenarios about the future.

4 Steps to the Future is a framework for developing foresight created by Dr. Richard Kaipo Lum, an academically trained futurist (and VFS’s founder).  The 4 Steps distills decades of training and experience into an easy-to-follow process for asking the fundamental questions important for effective foresight.

The 4 Steps is designed to guide groups through a process that begins with looking back at the past and concludes with new visions for the future.  Along the way participants collectively explore the wide range of dynamics, trends, and emerging developments that could shape the future.

The process quite literally follows four simple steps:

1. Analyzing the Past

2. Assessing the Present

3. Forecasting the Future(s)

4. Articulating a Vision

Among the many types of content created through the process, the primary output is a set of four original scenario forecasts that cover a wide range of possible futures.  Strategic implications, emerging risks, nascent opportunities – all these and more are also generated through the process.

While the outputs are important, most leaders who have gone through the 4 Steps process would say that the outcomes achieved are the most valuable part.  Leadership teams leave with a new, and powerful way to look at the future.  They gain a new vocabulary for discussing the future and a new sensitivity to the rapidly changing environment.

For many teams, it is a reset of their strategic conversation.

To learn more about how the 4 Steps can help your team, contact us today.