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Hey boss,
where are we headed?
If you’ve been asked this question by your team, you know the challenges of being in a position of leadership when the world around you is changing rapidly.
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How do you have conversations about the future in the midst of shifting social landscapes, escalating global tensions, health emergencies, and climate uncertainty?
This online course for leaders – whether of a team of 2 or 2000 – focuses on methods for sensing and responding to future scenarios. It will give you new ways of thinking about strategy and frameworks for guiding scary, ambiguous conversations with the people depending on you most – your team.
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It’s quick: 100 minutes in total. It’s digestible: 5-12 minute chunks. And you can watch it today (or over many days) and apply it tomorrow.
On average, managers devote less than 3% of their time to building a perspective on the future.
Let’s put that in the past.
Source: Hamel and Prahalad, Harvard Business Review
THE BUSINESS CASE FOR FORESIGHT
Coming out of 2008, organizations with mature foresight practices significantly outperformed industry benchmarks for profitability and market capitalization.
FIRMS CONSIDERED ADEQUATELY FUTURE-PREPARED
FIRMS CONSIDERED INADEQUATELY FUTURE-PREPARED
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Future-preparedness is measured as a firm's relative foresight maturity level.
SOURCE: Kum and Rohrbeck, 2018
WE'VE TRAINED LEADERS AT
In this course,
you will learn how to:
Make sense of a rapidly changing world with tools for sensing new changes and trends
​Take a structured approach to visualizing future scenarios
Engage your team and colleagues in discussions about what’s changing, what it means, and what to do about it
& more...
Lean into conversations about the uncertain and unknown
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Without a go-to framework, cutting into ambiguous discussions about the future can be tough. What do you anchor on? What version of the future?
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We’ll introduce foresight frameworks that give clarity and structure to this otherwise daunting task. You’ll find yourself seeking out opportunities to explore uncertainty, as opposed to steering away from it.
Build resilience personallly and organizationally
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Taking the long view and seeing what’s plausible makes individuals and teams better prepared for any change that might unfold, not just the most probable situations.
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We’ll cover how to think about foresight as understanding the plausible, not just the predictable, to build adaptive capacity as a leader and group.
Uncover and articulate new paths forward, sooner
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The sooner your team can see future possibilities, the sooner you can begin to develop creative responses that might otherwise have gone undiscovered.
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We’ll look at how foresight methods can help us challenge the assumptions about our current state and, in doing so, unlock new opportunities.
MEET YOUR INSTRUCTOR
Suzanne Stein
Suzanne is a faculty member at OCAD University where she teaches Digital Futures and Strategic Foresight and Innovation.
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Prior to OCAD U, she was with SMARTlab, where she was deputy director and principal research fellow in Technology Futures. Suzanne was formerly a member of Nokia’s Insight & Foresight group, which studied emerging trends and identified new business opportunities created by disruptive technological and market developments.
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At Sapient Corporation, a business and technology consultancy, Suzanne was the discipline lead for Experience Modeling (XMod), where she led a group of diverse social scientists. She was also a director in the User Experience Group, overseeing creative development and research offerings.
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Suzanne is a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics. She was the Canadian juror for the UN Task Force and the World Summit Awards.
Course Overview
100+ minutes of teaching in a series of digestible videos. Each video is a maximum of 15 minutes in length and presents a specific concept and corresponding exercise.
COURSE MODULES
01 - Introduction to Strategic Foresight
In this section you’ll meet your OCAD U instructor, understand the value of strategic foresight for your organization, and how to mobilize a team to augment the learning process.
03 - Building Scenarios
Scenario planning is a tool for anticipating what might unfold in the future. In this module, you will learn how to take the outputs of your team’s horizon scanning work and turn them into vivid snapshots of plausible futures, against which strategy options can be tested.
02 - Horizon Scanning
Horizon scanning identifies broad emerging information that indicates possible changes in a given industry. Learn techniques for uncovering trends, issues and events across societal, technological, economic, environmental, political, and values based changes.
04 - From Scenarios to Strategies
In this module, you will learn how to adapt and create strategies to prepare for both the near- and long-term future, and how to test those strategies against multiple possible scenarios.
05 - Leading into the Future
Take your leadership to the next level by building foresight capabilities in your team and across your organization. This module covers approaches to empowering teams, embracing diverse perspectives, and developing a culture of futures-thinking innovators.
More than a course. You’ll build a future-proofed plan.
Learning new skills? Great. Using skills to create change? Even better. That’s why we’re also including an entire foresight toolkit, complete with all of the tools, templates, meeting agendas, and worksheets that we use in our own large-scale foresight engagements.
When you register, you'll unlock:
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Ready-to-go spreadsheet templates for collaboratively conducting environmental scanning with your teams to begin understanding emerging future changes and trends
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Trends deck of over 100+ emerging trends across industries, spanning social, technological, environmental, economic, and political changes
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Exercises and methods for analyzing trends, building scenarios, and creating adaptive strategies
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Example scenario planning workshop and meeting agendas so you can begin to facilitate your own foresight work with team members and colleagues
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Our curated reading list and bibliography, built over nearly 10 years running one of the world’s leading graduate programs in strategic foresight
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Trend template to begin building your own internal library over time for ongoing foresight work
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Slide deck for introducing foresight to team members and colleagues
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Tips and tactics for building a future-focused culture and mentality as a leader in 1:1 coaching sessions, day-to-day team meetings, and strategy sessions
PLUS
Get a verified digital certificate from OCAD U CO.
“OCAD U CO’s foresight training kickstarted totally new thinking for us.
I continue to see my team use these tools – which almost never happens!”
— Program Manager, Leading Health Services Firm
PRICING
Times are tough, learning doesn’t have to be. We’ve made it as easy as possible for you to access the tools you need to navigate uncertainty and shape better futures.
ONE-TIME PAYMENT
Per Student Pricing
$199
Get immediate access to course
right after you register.
ACCESSIBLE PAYMENT PLAN
5 monthly payments of
$40
5 monthly payments will be automatically deducted from the credit card you provide at checkout. Get immediate access to course right after you register.
FAQs
What's the deal with the digital badge?
Once you complete all of the video modules in the course, we will issue you an OCAD U CO digital badge indicating your capability in foresight. You can use this to share your accomplishment with your network on LinkedIn, on your resume, Instagram, TikTok – go wild!
Can I do this with a team?
Yes! We actually recommend building foresight capability as a team so that you develop a shared language and way of working together. If your team is 5 or more, reach out to us for team pricing.
What is a verified digital certificate?
The digital certificate is a verified badge issued by OCAD U CO. It is a non-expiring certificate that you can share on your LinkedIn or other social profiles to verify your completion of the course. It looks something like this: https://www.youracclaim.com/org/ocad-u-co/badge/human-centred-design-foundations
Is there homework? And tests?
No! We want to make this course as accessible as possible. We will provide lots of exercises, readings and direction for how to learn the methods and frameworks but you can do it all at your own pace. No need to stress about marks – we care more about you learning and implementing the concepts in your own practice.
What if I’m not a formal ‘leader'?
This course is designed for anyone looking to add greater impact to their work by integrating the capabilities of strategic foresight and scenario planning. Regardless of the level that you make decisions, these tools will help you make more strategic decisions.
What if I don’t like the course?
No problem! We want to make sure you’re totally happy with every aspect of the course. If you’re not fully satisfied, we offer a full money back guarantee within 7 days.