We are not, as a species, very good at prediction. This you will quickly realize as you read the first chapter of this book. Yet we need prediction to live our daily lives-insurance, weather forecasting, shipping, flight and other decisions depend on [...] make predictions all the time and sometimes we get it right.Strategic foresight is not about prediction. It is about understanding and anticipating different futures. The future is rarely a straight line from the past-it is subject to change and uncertainty. What strategic foresight as a process does is seek to understand why the future will be different from the past and what the implication of these differences are.
In this book, I provide insights from forty years of consulting practice with organizations from large (Oracle, TESCO, Heinz, Barclays, Conoco-Phillips), medium (Debenhams, West Yorkshire Police, Millennium Copthorne) and small (Elk Island Public Schools, Alberta Assessment Consortium, Contact North/Contact Nord); for-profit and non-profit.