This technique utilises a story-telling approach to help participants test scenario plausibility and by considering the timeline, and to get buy-in by addressing the question ‘how could this happen?’.
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Image – Certainty Matrix
Activity plan
- Ask participants to identify the biggest differences between the current world and the future scenario (two to three minutes)
- Participants then explain the change, identifying three to five causes for each change (answering questions like ‘why does the majority buy expensive ecological food?’) (five to ten minutes)
- Select the main causes from the group of causes (five to ten minutes)
- Identify common causes and repeat the process of answering appropriate questions (five to ten minutes)
- Draw a draft timeline (ten minutes)
- Finish the timeline using colourful (tabloid) paper headlines (optional) with a short explanation (ten minutes)
- An additional step could involve plotting the identified events onto a certainty matrix (the vertical axis running from ‘certain to occur’ down to ‘uncertain to occur’ and the horizontal range from low impact to high impact).