This document provides instructions for a scenario planning group assignment. Students are asked to conduct scenario planning for a key issue facing their manager's organization. They must identify drivers of change, develop four scenarios based on two axes of uncertainty, and analyze strategic implications. Deliverables include an initial presentation, feedback, and a final written report and video summarizing scenario planning results and recommendations for the organization. The report should follow guidelines on content, including describing scenarios, strategic fit, and contingency planning.

1. October 21, 2016
1
Strategic Thinking in a Global and Digital World
SSE CEMS Course 9481
Scenario Planning Group Assignment
Professor Robin Teigland, robin.teigland@hhs.se
Michal Gromek, michal.gromek@phdstudent.hhs.se
“This present moment used to be the unimaginable future.” – Steward Brand
INTRODUCTION
Learning objective: To experience the process and challenges of scenario planning as
a strategic thinking tool for assessing and anticipating the future.
Organizations operate in macro-environments characterized by a high pace of change
in a number of trends, such as political, economic, sociological, technological,
environmental, and legal (PESTEL). Organizations that anticipate, plan, and prepare
for future changes are those that can improve their competitive advantage to reap the
rewards from volatile environments. Thus, the primary objective of this assignment is
to experience the process and challenges of scenario planning as a strategic thinking
tool that stimulates imaginative, creative thinking and enables leaders to better assess
and anticipate the future. This project will enable you to develop your understanding
of and skills related to scenario planning and strategic management through applying
frameworks, concepts, and methods to a organization’s real Key Focal Issue.
In your teams and together with your manager(s), you will conduct a scenario
planning project on a Key Focal Issue for your manager’s organization. The Key
Focal Issue should be a broad yet strategic question that is critical to the future of the
manager’s organization and one that potentially “keeps the manager awake at night”.
Another way of defining the Key Focal Issue is “What one question about the future
of your organization would you like to ask a real psychic?”
Regarding deliverables, during the course you will make one preliminary presentation
and provide feedback on another team’s presentation, and at the end of the course,
you will submit a written project report and a video in which you present your project.
More information is below.
DATA COLLECTION
To conduct this project, you need to do a substantial amount of data collection. Data
collection should include both primary data collection, e.g., interviews, questionnaires,
and secondary data collection, e.g., electronic databases at the SSE Library, online
sources, reports. The project also involves reading and interpreting current business
events and trends influencing the future. SSE also offers the free use of an online
survey tool, Qualtrics. More information is at the end of this document.

2. October 21, 2016
2
A good idea is to book an appointment with the SSE Library to learn about the
databases they offer. The Library is very helpful!
When you collect your data, be sure to take a critical perspective of your sources.
What are the credentials of the author(s) and publisher? How trustworthy and reliable
are the research and data collection methods? How objective is the report? Do the
data support the findings? Do the conclusions flow logically from the data? More
information on how to critically assess online sources can be found here:
http://www.qou.edu/english/scientificResearch/eLearningResearchs/developingACriti
cal.pdf.
All data sources, including interviews, websites, organization reports, articles, and
others, must be referenced in the written report. You are welcome to reuse material
from other sources, but you must properly reference it. The failure to give full credit
can be grounds for plagiarism. See www.plagiarism.org for more information. In
addition, you are expected to share resources and links found outside of class with
each other, for example through dropbox.
THE SCENARIO PLANNING PROCESS
Scenario Planning is a systematic, structured process. It begins with defining the Key
Focal Issue and is described in Figure 1. More information can be found in the
literature at the end of this document.
Figure 1. “A Scenario Planning Process”, adopted from Garvin, D. A., & Levesque,L. C. (2005), A
Note on Scenario Planning.

3. October 21, 2016
3
DEADLINES, SUBMISSIONS, AND IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES
All submissions should be made to the SSE Portal. More information on each follows
below.
Deadline Submission or In-class Activity
November 4, 8:00 am Submission: Choice of Key Focal Issue for Scenario Planning project. A
one page MS Word document describing your key focal issue.
November 22, 8:00 am Submission: Initial Presentation. Max 10 slides presentation (e.g., MS
PPT) on your project work to date.
November 22, 1:00 pm In-class: Initial Presentation and Feedback. Max 8 min presentation on
your project work to date. Each team will also provide verbal feedback on
anotherteam’s presentation.Feedback teams will be assigned in class.
November 23, 8:00 am Submission: Initial Presentation Feedback. Max 2 pages MS Word
document summarizing your feedback on the other team’s presentation. In
addition to submitting your Feedback to the SSE Portal, send your Feedback
directly to the team for which you are providing the Feedback.
January 9, 8:00 am Submission:
 Final Scenario Planning Report. Max 15 pages MS Word Report, font
size 12, single line spacing not including title page, executive summary,
table of contents, references or appendices. Also submit your report to
your manager.
 Video Presentation: Max 10 min video presentation summarizing your
Scenario Planning report. Also submit your video to your manager.
SUBMISSIONS
1. Choice of Key Focal Issue
You are to prepare a max one page MS Word description of your Key Focal Issue and
discuss the below areas.
1. Describe your organization’s strategy. Do some research on your
organization’s mission statement and strategy and look at some of the
organization’s recent strategic activities. What do you think that the
organization’s mission statement and strategy say about the customer focus,
value creation, guiding values, and core competencies of this organization?
2. Present your Key Focal Issue. What is your organization’s Key Focal Issue and
why and how is this issue critical to the future of your organization? Why does it
keep your manager awake at night?
3. Present your Horizon Year. What is the Horizon Year for your scenario
planning? Why have you chosen this year? Is it short enough that it is probable,
yet far enough in the future that you will see an impact?

4. October 21, 2016
4
2. Initial Presentation
You are to prepare a max 8 min oral presentation based on your max 10 slides
presentation (e.g., MS PPT) on your project work to date. Label your presentation,
“Initial_YourTeam#.pdf and submit by the deadline specified above. For this
presentation, you should discuss the following areas:
1. Introduce the Scenario Planning Project for your organization: Present your
Key Focal Issue, the Horizon Year, and why and how your issue is critical to the
future of your organization during this time horizon. Discuss how this relates to
the organization’s mission statement, strategy, and core competencies.
2. Identify the drivers that impact the future. Do some research on which
PESTEL trends could influence and shape the Key Focal Issue. Evaluate the
identified trends, e.g., how predictable/uncertain are they, what degree of impact
will they have on the Key Focal Issue?
3. Develop the “Impact-Uncertainty Classification”. Map each of the identified
trends onto the Impact-Uncertainty Classification. What are the Certain &
Important trends? What are the Critical Uncertainties? Which are the 4-5
Critical Scenario Drivers that you think will have the highest uncertainty and
highest impact on your Key Focal Issue?
4. Develop an initial idea for the axes of uncertainty. Test the 4-5 Critical
Scenario Drivers in pairs in a scenario framework. How high is the correlation
between these? Which 2 Critical Scenario Drivers do you think should be used in
your Scenario Framework? Motivate your choice of these axes.
5. Initialize the Scenario Matrix. What are your initial ideas for your four
scenarios? Are they completely different from each other?
6. Describe your research. What are you doing to develop a further understanding
of the industry and potential future scenarios and their implications for the Key
Focal Issue and your organization? What research are you conducting and how
are you conducting this research?
7. Describe your future work. What are your next steps? How will you involve
your manager(s) and your organization in the process?
3. Initial Presentation Feedback
Feedback teams will be assigned in class to provide both oral and written feedback on
one other team’s presentation. The Feedback should add value to the other Team’s
presentation content and the communication of the Team’s message. Your Feedback
should also include a summary of the main feedback points made by the other
students. Your Feedback should include points on both strengths and weaknesses
regarding content and communication style. You are to prepare a max two page MS
Word document summarizing your feedback. Label your document,

5. October 21, 2016
5
“Feedback_YourTeam#.doc” and submit by the deadline specified above.
Additionally, send your Feedback directly to the team for which you are providing the
Feedback.
4. Scenario Planning Project Report
You are to prepare a max 15 pages (MS Word) Report, not including a title page,
executive summary, table of contents, bibliography or appendices. Label your
document, “Final_YourTeam#.pdf” and submit by the deadline specified above.
Additionally, send your Report directly to your manager.
Although the exact contents, length, and format may vary, most scenario planning
reports do contain the following sections, not necessarily in this exact order. For more
help, look at some of the sources mentioned below in Literature. I also suggest that
you do your own research and take a look at various external sources to help you
develop your Scenario Planning report.
1.Executive Summary and Table of Contents. Provide a condensed overview of
the document, briefly reviewing its highlights and objectives and linking the
scenario planning effort to higher-lever strategies and goals, and then present the
table of contents.
2.Introduction and Summary of Key Focal Issue and Current Situation.
Introduce the report by providing an overview of the organization’s mission,
strategy, offerings, and financial status and a description of the Key Focal Issue
and Horizon Year along with a background to the scenario planning exercise.
3.Drivers Shaping the Future. Provide an overview of the PESTEL trends that
are shaping the future and that may influence your organization and its Key Focal
Issue as well as the Impact-Uncertainty Classification. Discuss which trends are
the 4-5 Critical Scenario Drivers that you think will have the highest uncertainty
and highest impact on your Key Focal Issue as well as which 2 you have chosen
for the axes of uncertainty for the Scenario Matrix.
4.Scenario Matrix. Describe the four scenarios. Present the name for each
scenario and a plausible, consistent story describing the path and environment
towards the End State for each scenario. Describe each story with a title,
beginning, middle, and end. While a small set of variables will be identical in all
scenarios, the difference among the four scenarios should be clear and are the
important part of aligning them to different worlds. Quantify key variables and
present early warning indicators listed. Summarize your scenarios in a scenario
table or figure. For each scenario, discuss the following:
a. What underlying assumptions regarding value creation in each scenario
have been broken?
b. What are the key success factors in each scenario?
c. Describe the major players in each scenario.
d. What is your organization’s business model, i.e., “boundary-spanning
transactions where external stakeholders are linked to the focal firm and
where the value is created and captured between and for all of these

6. October 21, 2016
6
exchange partners.”1
e. What is your value proposition? I.e., what products and/or services do you
provide and what is your USP?
f. What is the ecosystem within which your organization operates? I.e., What
is the organization’s network of relationships that enables your business
model? What do you exchange in these relationships?
5.Strategic Implications and Recommendations. Discuss what could happen if
these scenarios become a reality, and what that can mean for your organization.
Consider both immediate and longer-term consequences for your organization for
each of the four scenarios. What are the main opportunities and threats each
scenario poses for your organization? What recommendations do you have for
your organization? Discuss the following:
a. How well do your organization’s current vision and mission fit each
scenario?
b. What principal resources and capabilities are necessary to form the basis
of a sustainable competitive advantage in each scenario?
c. How would your organization have to adapt its 7S to be successful under
each scenario?
d. Given these possible futures, what is your overall assessment of your
organization’s strategy?
e. Develop a robust strategy for the organization that is resilient and viable
regardless of which scenario does occur. Where is your strategy
vulnerable?
f. What major modifications do you recommend to your organization’s
current strategy?
g. What resources and capabilities do you need to develop?
h. What are the contingencies that should be put in place now to deal with
these scenarios?
6.Implementation and Controls. How should your Scenario Planning report be
communicated to your organization? How should your organization monitor the
early warning indicators to determine which scenario(s) is unfolding?
7.Bibliography. Present the sources you used for your report, providing links
when applicable.
8.Appendix. Present your methods for data collection and any supporting material
for your report.
5. Scenario Planning Project Video
Prepare a max 10 min video presentation summarizing your Scenario Planning report.
The idea is that this video can be used within your organization to help it prepare for
the future. Label your video, “Video_YourTeam#.mp4” and submit by the deadline
specified above. Additionally, send your video directly to your manager.
1 Hanna von Schantz, PhD dissertation,Forthcoming 2017

7. October 21, 2016
7
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
Below are the criteria I will use to assess both your written and oral communications.
Professional Written and Oral Communications (10%)
 Professional presentation and when applicable, with title page, executive
summary, introduction, layout, figures, tables.
 Easy to follow, well written, and logical storyline that keeps the reader’s or
listener’s attention. Make your deliverables eye-catching by using headings,
bullet points, figures, photos, videos, etc. Make PPT slides well structured and
provide a clear, logical storyline. Make sure each slide has a concise,
convincing key message that is supported by data or detail. Make the slides
well designed and clearly visualized.
 Stand-alone, self-explanatory document, i.e., if anyone looks at the presentation
or final report, he or she can understand what it is about without having it
explained or presented. For presentations, more information can be provided
in the speaker notes of each ppt slide but no more than can fit on the page
when printed (12 pt Times New Roman minimum size in notes).
 Strict adherence to the assignment format guidelines
o Include a title page with SSE logo, a name of program and course,
names of group members and emails.
o Include page numbers.
o Use minimum 18 point Times New Roman (or the equivalent of
another font) on the ppt slides and minimum 12 point Times New
Roman (or equivalent) in the slide notes.
o Use single-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman for MS Word
documents, margins minimum 2.54 on all sides.
o Submit only one document for each assignment and in its original
program format, i.e., ppt - No PDFs.
 Any props/other media appropriate and integrated into presentations.
 Well-delivered presentation and strict adherence to time requirements when
presenting.
 All sources documented in a proper manner - see www.plagiarism.org for
more information on how to cite and document sources.
Critical Thinking Involving Analysis and Understanding of Theoretical Concepts and
Frameworks that Build Your Argument (60%)
 Understanding of relevant concepts from readings and class discussions,
providing definitions when applicable.
 Ability to incorporate various concepts in an integrated, comprehensive
approach.
 Analysis clearly related to the assignment.
 Ability to critically conduct consistent and logical analysis - supporting
assumptions with sound argumentation/rationalization. For example, do your
scenarios clearly flow from the scenario matrix? Are your recommendations
consistent with the scenarios? Perhaps tables or figures will occasionally help
convey your ideas.

8. October 21, 2016
8
 Specific facts from the organization, external sources, readings, and/or from
personal experience critically reviewed and analyzed and used to support your
assertions and statements.
 Provide convincing evidence that you understand the dynamics of the
organization and its market relationships, the dynamics of the trends and their
influence on each other and on the Key Focal Issue, etc.
Creative and Original Content Yet Feasible Scenario Planning (30%)
 Originality and creativity in your analysis and scenarios, bringing fresh
perspectives. But creative does not mean style-artistic creative. Rather,
creative refers to whether you drew interesting and non-obvious conclusions,
or perhaps whether you analyzed something in multiple ways that were clever
and added value to your scenario planning (as opposed to clever but so what).
Being clever and creative is essentially the art of making insightful
observations and then using these observations meaningfully.
 Scenarios and recommendations that are sound and plausible and that flow from
the analysis.
 Assumptions used in the analysis presented.
 Limitations that could impact the scenarios incorporated.
 Answer questions during oral presentations (again using all the data you have
presented from the case study and other sources).
TEAMWORK
The success of your team will greatly depend on the ability of the team members to
work together. Working well as a team requires that each member learns to cope with
different personalities of the other team members. A strong team does not let
differences in schedules, age, gender, or experiences interfere with their performance.
If a team member does not carry his or her share of the work, that individual should
be warned of the need for improvement. I should be considered an ex officio member
of each group and kept apprised of developments, especially when the team is
considering removing a team member for non-performance.
The success of your team also depends on how well you work with your manager(s).
Leverage them wisely in this project but do not overburden them with requests.
LITERATURE AND OTHER SOURCES
Required Readings
 A Note on Scenario Planning, Harvard Business School.
 Wilkinson, A. and Kupers, R., 2013. Living in the futures. Harvard Business
Review, 91(5), pp.118-127.
 A Future-Back Approach to Creating Your Growth Strategy,
http://www.innosight.com/innovation-resources/strategy-innovation/upload/A-

9. October 21, 2016
9
Future-Back-Approach-to-Creating-Long-Term-Growth-Strategy.pdf
 Bradfield, R., Wright, G., Burt, G., Cairns, G., & Van Der Heijden, K. (2005).
The origins and evolution of scenario techniques in long range business
planning. Futures, 37(8), 795-812.
 Amer, Muhammad, Tugrul U. Daim, and Antonie Jetter. A review of scenario
planning. Futures 46 (2013): 23-40.
 Six Rules for Effective Forecasting, Saffo, P. Harvard Business Review, 2012.
 Grasping the Future: Comparing Scenarios to Other Techniques, 2001, More,
M. http://www.kurzweilai.net/grasping-the-future-comparing-scenarios-to-
other-techniques
 Read about the PESTEL analysis (also known as STEEP, PESTLE, PEST,
STEP) framework on the internet, e.g., http://pestel-analysis.com/.
Optional Readings (in no particular order)
 Scenario Planning: A Tool for Strategic Thinking. Schoemaker, P.J., Sloan
Management Review, 1995.
 Van Notten, P.W., Rotmans, J., Van Asselt, M.B. & Rothman, D.S., 2003. An
updated scenario typology. Futures, 35(5), pp.423-443.
 Scenario Planning and Strategic Forecasting, Forbes,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2015/01/08/scenario-planning-and-
strategic-forecasting/#3bded0f76b7b
 Cornelius, P., Van de Putte, A. and Romani, M., 2005. Three decades of
scenario planning in shell. California Management Review, 48(1), pp.92-109.
 From Scenario Thinking to Strategic Action,
http://horizon.unc.edu/projects/seminars/futurizing/action.asp
 Wilkinson, L., 1997. How to Build Scenarios: Planning for" long fuse, big
bang" problems in an era of uncertainty. WIRED, pp.74-81.
https://www.wired.com/1995/11/how-to-build-scenarios/
 Scenario Planning: The Link between Future and Strategy, Lindgren, M. &
Bandhold, H. Palgrave Macmillan.
 The Current State of Scenario Development: An Overview of Techniques,
foresight, 2007.
 Eyes Wide Open: Embracing Uncertainty through Scenario Planning, July 22,
2009 in Knowledge@Wharton,
https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/1081542/file/1081543.pdf.
 Getting into Your Competitor’s Head, H. Courtney, J.T. Horn, & J. Kar,
McKinsey Quarterly, 2009, 1, http://bit.ly/ReMZ1X.
 The Ambidextrous Organisation, J. Birkinshaw. AIM Report,
http://bit.ly/S02Gen.
 Scenario-based Strategy Maps, F. Buytendijka, T. Hatch, & P. Michel,
Business Horizons, 2010, 53, 335-347, http://bit.ly/Sm5srs.
 The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Taleb, N. Random
House Publishing Group.

10. October 21, 2016
10
Other sources that can be found online
 Global scenarios for 2025
o Shell International Limited
o U.S. National Intelligence Council
o The World Economic Forum
 Futures studies organizations
o Singularity University
o Decision Strategies International
o Institute for the Future
o Kairos Future
o McKinsey Global Institute
 Other tips
o Search words: scenario, foresight, trend, trendspotting, trendwatching,
future studies, institute for future, on blogs, Wikipedia, Slideshare,
Twitter
Qualtrics
All students at SSE can without charge (SSE pays) use the Internet based
questionnaire tool, Qualtrics.
This is information about how you register and start using Qualtrics.
1) To create an account, go to hhs.qualtrics.com. You must do this before you
can use Qualtrics.
2) To login at Qualtrics and make questionnaires, go to
https://hhs.qualtrics.om/ControlPanel/.
3) Qualtrics may ONLY be used by students for their education at SSE! No
other uses are allowed and will lead to suspension from the tool.
4) Qualtrics website: http://www.qualtrics.com/#/
5) If you still need help after checking the Qualtrics website, you may contact
Göran Lindqvist at SSE, goran.lindqvist@hhs.se.
6) As a reminder, our license entitles us to the following:
• Unlimited surveys
• Unlimited responses
• Qualtrics support
• Qualtrics user community