Calibrating strategic perspectives

Sustained success requires long-term strategies with contingencies for uncertainty. Strategies, and their assumptions about future trends and events, should be set against a background or scenario. Comprehensive scenarios are rare becasue of lack of training, myopia about remote factors, problems of consensus and lack of simple tools. This article offers a simulation solution, bridging intuitive and econometric approaches. This provides a framework for heuristic learning, for trying alternative strategies, assumptions and interactions, gaining consensus and producing more and less likely scenarios. This reduces vulnerability to shock and lost opportunity. It helps management focus on long-term strategy, allowing more initiative down the line. A case study for a county planning department is illustrated.