Looking Back at the Strategic Foresight Workshops
“I just got a call that the museum’s roof is leaking.”
“That’s great! Now you’ve got something to rally donors!”
This exchange is not what you would expect to overhear at a workshop for cultural organizations, but the Strategic Foresight Workshops were not your typical professional development seminars. Over one week, Elizabeth Merritt, the Founding Director of the Center for the Future of Museums at the American Alliance of Museums, led workshops in Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville. Through a combination of lectures, discussions, and hands-on activities, over 65 participants learned the basics of strategic foresight and how to apply the skills at their organizations.
The Workshops
Strategic foresight is a systematic process of scanning for changes on the margins before they become major forces in the mainstream. Merritt explains in Strategic Foresight: A Toolkit, “Foresight helps organizations create a portfolio of actions to deploy as needed and identify strategies that may succeed in a wide variety of circumstances.”
In the morning session, participants gained a general overview of foresight and how it fits into museum planning. They experimented with using foresight through activities designed to challenge assumptions about the world and think through the implications of changes that are already happening. After lunch, Merritt led them through backcasting – a method of envisioning a desirable future and working backwards to “remember” the steps taken to make that reality. The remainder of the workshop focused on building scenarios based on trends and disruptive events and then bringing a possible future to life through world-building. Participants who completed a post-workshop survey received copies of Strategic Foresight: A Toolkit to use within their organizations.
Outcomes
Humanities Tennessee’s intention in hosting these workshops was to increase cultural organizations’ capacity to imagine the future, identify sources of hopes and anxieties, and acknowledge the future impact of current choices. In the post-workshop survey, multiple participants remarked that the activities challenged them to think differently.
Aja Bain, Senior Manager of Professional Development and Publications at the American Association for State and Local History, said, “This workshop was fantastic. I loved getting to meet a new mix of Middle TN humanities people and orgs and getting to find creative joy in envisioning the future. The exercises and discussion provided great accessible examples of getting people to consider the future without the fear it usually holds, and seeing how approaching the somewhat unknowable with resilience and creativity can inspire innovative and flexible thinking that is key for confronting and preparing for what may be down the pike for history orgs and communities.”
Many participants plan to use their copy of Strategic Foresight: A Toolkit to create professional development opportunities within their organizations. Several also plan to use the Toolkit in their strategic planning processes in order to create more flexible plans that can respond to multiple possible futures. Additionally, some participants reported plans to use the Toolkit in developing public programming.
What’s Next
Humanities Tennessee plans to maintain the momentum generated by the workshops by exploring ways to collaborate on public programming using foresight and futures thinking approaches. Over two thirds of workshop participants said they would definitely or probably be interested in this type of collaboration.
The Tennessee Association of Museums is currently accepting proposals for the 64th Annual Conference. The committee is asking that session proposals use “the past to prepare for a brighter future” and “to include time for “futurecasting” that builds on the lessons learned in their work and how they can inspire the future of museums in the Volunteer State.” We hope to work with interested workshop participants to create a programming-focused futures session at the conference.
Additionally, we are compiling a list of future-focused programs and opportunities that are planned for next year. If you are planning or know of exhibitions, publications, conferences, panel discussions, or any other public offering, please let us know.
Special thanks to the Museum of Science and History (Memphis), Tennessee State Museum (Nashville), and the East Tennessee Historical Society (Knoxville) for serving as local hosts. Thank you as well to MoSH and the Tennessee Association of Museums for assisting with lunches for participants.