Read wide, write four worlds, then break the plan.
Four moves that loosen the grip of the present on a planning conversation. Each is set out so a teacher or school leader can run it next week, with timings, the exact questions to ask, worksheets that print on A4 and the ways it goes wrong. All four are run on the same horizon scan, so you can see what each one actually produced.
The four
What each move is for
Move 1 · Widens what counts as evidence
Scanning
Structured reading across sources that disagree, then disciplined discarding.
- Time
- 3 hours 20 minutes, over two sessions
- You leave with
- 40–80 signals, 5–8 named shifts and a log of what was discarded and why
Move 2 · Makes a future inhabitable
Scenarios
Two uncertainties crossed into four worlds a group can reason from inside.
- Time
- 4 hours, best as one day
- You leave with
- Four short worlds, a read-across table on five dimensions and early indicators for each world
Move 3 · Turns a preference into a route
Backcasting
Name the future you want, then work back to what must be decided now.
- Time
- 2 hours 30 minutes
- You leave with
- A dated chain of conditions back to today, and two or three decisions with owners and dates
Move 4 · Finds the plan’s single point of failure
Stress-testing
Run a commitment through four futures and see where it breaks.
- Time
- 2 hours
- You leave with
- Load-bearing assumptions, each with a signpost and a hedge, and usually one change to the commitment
In sequence
How the four run together
The four moves run in order, and each one feeds the next. Scanning gives you the shifts. Scenarios cross the two most uncertain shifts into four worlds. Backcasting picks the world you would want and works back to today. Stress-testing takes a commitment you already hold and runs it through all four worlds to find where it breaks.
Most schools should start with stress-testing, not scanning. It needs a set of scenarios, but those can be borrowed. The OECD’s four scenarios for schooling, or the four on this site, will do. It takes two hours, it touches a decision that is live now, and it is the move most likely to change something.
Skip scanning when a good published scan already covers your question and your horizon. Skip backcasting when the group does not agree on where it wants to be. Backcasting from a destination people are only pretending to share produces a route nobody will walk. Never skip the scenarios step if you plan to backcast or stress-test. You can borrow scenarios, but you cannot do without them.
Run in full, the set takes about twelve hours of group time. That is two half-days and two shorter sessions, ideally spread over four to six weeks so the scan has time to be read. A school with one afternoon should run stress-testing on borrowed scenarios and stop there.
Worksheets
Every sheet in this strand
Each one is on its move’s page, ready to print on A4.
- ScanningScan frame and discard rulesFixes the question and the rules for discarding before anyone starts collecting, so the narrowing can be argued with later.
- ScanningSignal logRecords each signal in the same shape, with the lens it was forced through and the rule that kept or dropped it.
- ScenariosUncertainty sortRates each shift on impact and uncertainty, and tests which pairs are independent enough to become axes.
- ScenariosRead-across gridPuts the four worlds side by side on five dimensions, so you can see what persists and what differs.
- BackcastingBackcast ladderSteps back from the destination to today in stages, so the first untrue condition stands out.
- BackcastingFirst decisionsTurns the first untrue condition into decisions with owners and dates, and checks them against the other worlds.
- Stress-testingFour-world testRuns one commitment through four futures and records where it holds, bends or breaks.
- Stress-testingAssumptions, signposts and hedgesLists what must stay true, marks the load-bearing assumptions and gives each a signpost to watch and a hedge to act on now.
Across the toolkit