Scenario and Contingency Planning
Scenario Planning
A structured way for organizations to think about the future, typically by developing a small number of scenarios—stories about how the future might unfold and how this might affect an issue that confronts them, which include risks and opportunities.
Origin
Herman Kahn pioneered the technique at the RAND Corporation in the early 1950s, writing narrative "scenarios" to map the many possible paths of nuclear conflict rather than assuming a single future. In 1971, Pierre Wack adapted Kahn's methods at Royal Dutch Shell with colleague Ted Newland, constructing scenarios that included an oil-price shock — which materialised in the October 1973 Arab oil embargo and gave Shell a decisive competitive advantage. Wack made the methodology public in two 1985 Harvard Business Review articles.