Traditional strategy assumes stability and predictability. Today's world is better characterised by turbulence, uncertainty, novelty and ambiguity - conditions that contribute disruptive changes and trigger the search for new ways of coping.

This book aims to become the premier guide on how to do scenario planning to support strategy and public policy. Co-authored by three experts in the field, the book presents The Oxford Scenario Planning Approach (OSPA). The approach is both intellectually rigorous and practical. Methodological choices and theoretical aspects in practice are detailed in reference to the relevant literatures and grounded in 6 case studies the authors have been involved with.

The book makes several contributions to the field, centred on how learning with scenario planning is supported by re-framing and re-perception; how this iterative process can be embedded in corporate or government settings, and how it helps those that it supports to do well in today's world.

The book is written in an accessible style and will be a useful introductory text as well as a useful guide for the more experienced scenario planning practitioner and scholar.

Rafael Ramirez's profile page

Angela Wilkinson's profile page

Rafael Ramirez is Director of the Oxford Scenarios Programme and has pioneered work in organizational aesthetics; the interactive design of strategy; and how scenarios work. He was Visiting Professor of Scenarios and Corporate Strategy at Shell International 2000-2003 and Chairman of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council of Strategic Foresight. Rafael holds a PhD from the Wharton School, speaks Spanish, English and French fluently, has lived in five countries, and has worked on scenarios and futures work in some 30 countries since 1980. Angela Wilkinson has contributed to over 100 futures studies and has directed several international multi-stakeholder scenario planning and foresight initiatives. She has over 30 years of analytical, managerial and consultancy experience, including board-level responsibility, honed in a wide range of organisations and international bodies, spanning the public and private sector. She is a member of the WEF's Global Strategic Foresight Community. Angela was Director of Futures Programmes, Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, and Director of Futures Research, James Martin Institute, University of Oxford. She spent nearly a decade in Shell's global scenario team. She has a Ph.D in Physics.