Seven Questions Scenario Method

The seven questions scenario method is a structured interview protocol, associated with the Global Business Network and the Shell scenario tradition, used at the front end of scenario building to surface the concerns, predetermined elements, and critical uncertainties that will seed a set of scenarios. Rather than starting from abstract drivers, facilitators interview key informants and decision-makers using a fixed sequence of seven open questions — including the famous 'oracle' question (if you could ask a clairvoyant one thing about the future, what would it be?) and the 'epitaph' question about the legacy the organization hopes to leave. The interviews draw out what people most hope for, fear, and want to know, and the analysis of those responses identifies which forces are effectively predetermined and which are genuinely uncertain. As Schoemaker's account of scenario planning and Bishop, Hines, and Collins's survey of scenario techniques both stress, separating the predetermined from the uncertain is the pivot on which good scenarios turn.