Futurescaping – Using Business Insights to Plan Your Life is pitched at your personal (not business) life. It gives you a process by which you can rationally evaluate your options and make a decision.
So, what is ‘Futurescaping’? It’s the practice of applying two specific business tools to help you make decisions in your complicated personal life: (i) political, economic, socio-cultural and technological influences (PEST) and (ii) scenario planning.
Author Tamar Kasriel contends that many high-powered, über-organised executives often lead shambolic personal lives. She bemoans this sorry state of affairs and appeals to the reader to redress this imbalance. The first 124 pages are rather ‘self-help’ in nature.
Things pick up from Chapter 8. I’m a big of fan of scenario planning, which Kasriel condenses to a few simple steps. I think it’s a bit rich to maintain the branding of “scenario planning”, but I did consider the simpler process helpful. (Disclaimer for the next bit. I am an employee of Shell.)
Shell has been developing Scenarios since the early '70s. There’s a special team of super-bright people that produce these scenarios and the result is some very plausible and thought provoking depictions of the world’s “energy” future. You can download for free http://www.shell.com/global/future-energy/scenarios.html
I won’t summarise Kasriel’s entire personal PEST. I’ll just mention that the author suggests you replace the standard meaning of P (political) with Power or Promotion.
The book concludes with examples of big decisions that people have tackled and resolved by ‘Futurescaping’. Caveat: It will not sort out purely emotional turmoil.
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