Futures Studies is an approach to long-term strategic planning. It involves examining emerging and evolving risks to help think about the future as a set of multiple, plausible alternatives. By evaluating this set of alternative futures, we can identify proactive measures to take now to manage our risk and steer our organization toward our preferred futures.
This self-study course course offers a practical, actionable approach for conducting futures studies to identify emerging trends and risks relevant to the fields of homeland security, emergency management, and public safety. This course assists practitioners in developing these plausible alternative futures, generating strategic foresight for their organizations, and prompting proactive planning and action to manage future risks.
This course combines industry standard best practices in futures studies with lessons learned from real world implementation. It is organized around the steps identified by the Association of Professional Futurists that support comprehensive strategic foresight analysis. It leverages standard taxonomies such as the Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political (STEEP) Framework, to help ensure an analytic foundation is established that is sound and justifiable. It introduces practical, proven stakeholder engagement methods, workshop designs, and facilitation techniques, to support successful implementation of a futures studies program in any organization or jurisdiction.
