Design from the future
Change your perspective. Advise from the future to today’s decision-makers.
Addressing the major challenges your organization faces requires a different perspective. A perspective where we can hear the wisdom of voices from the future. And incorporate these voices into the decisions we make in the present.
We achieve this not by looking forward, or by setting up an empty chair symbolizing the future. But rather by looking back. From the future.
This method is developed in part based on the groundwork of professor Tatsuyoshi Sajo from the Japanse Research Institute for Future Design.
Approach
Facilitators Rick Koster and Igor Verettas take you to a moment far in time; 20, 30, or 40 years from now. You land in this future and experience what is happening then. From there, we look back. What do we see when we look from the future to the present? What advice, warning, or compliment can we offer from the future? This leads to significantly different choices and ultimately different impacts on the present and the future.
As Roman Krznaric says in his book The Good Ancestor: ‘Your children’s children will thank you.’.
Participant: I don’t want to go back to 2023 at all, what strange choices we made there!
Effect
Through time travel and changing perspectives, during the session, there is more than ever a realization that the choices we make now have a huge impact on the future. It is likely that after the meeting, you will no longer see the world of today in the same way. And from that moment on, Future Design influences your thoughts, your choices, and your actions.
The journey has an effect in two ways. It gives you an enriched perspective that leads to different choices and answers within your organization. Additionally, it touches something inside that results in a different attitude towards work, life, and coexistence. As a result, it has an impact on the future both within the work situation and personally. You improve your futurability.
Participant: You can’t not care anymore. My awareness is forever changed.
Perspectives of children
Future Design has also been done with a group of children. We took them to the future, talked to them about what worries them, and improved the process in co-creation. With the advice of this group of children, the method has been refined, and the voice of the future is present at every meeting. As a result, the timeframe of the effect is now about 80 years!
Child: For the first time, I feel that my concerns about the future have really been listened to.
When to apply Future Design
Future Design fits everywhere you want a fresh look at the present, by becoming people from the future. Future Design fits particularly well as part of strategy development where it is important to break away from the present and the limited vision of decisions. This approach provides your organization with new images that lead to different choices with a major impact on future generations. It guides everyone who wants to look beyond a policy period of four years and take responsibility for long-term decisions.
Participant: First, I need to have a good conversation at home and also start living this way.
On June 8, 2023, professor Tatsuyoshi Sajo invited Igor and Rick for a webinar at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature. Title of the webinar: Future design for creating future-proof primary schools in The Netherlands. To understand more about their approach and outcomes of a diversity of sessions at SaKS, Blosse, Dutch Society of Applied Universties and Nudge, you can download the slidedeck here.
