Scenarios, toolkits and what happens next?
Mary Ulicsak
When you start looking there are a lot of scenarios on the web, including a large number with an educational slant, for example scenarios developed by JISC, the Learning and Skills Research Centre and OECD. Even Futurelab has created them to help inspire. Yet how many have been used to support planning? I ask because I’ve been conducting interviews with various teachers, Local Authorities, IT suppliers, architects and consultants who are all involved in some degree of long term planning but whose current approach does not involve seeing how their plans would work in such environments. I’m genuinely curious as to why this is. Is it because they’re not aware of such an approach? Is it because there isn’t time to do this sort of thinking? Is it because they don’t feel the need to have a vision beyond the next five years? (One of my interviewees observed that schools do detailed planning for the next year, vague planning for the next five years and nothing beyond – which am sure is not true but would be a shame if it were the case.)
As I said in my last blog the creation of scenarios is probably unachievable given the limited time, resources and expertise available – although if you’re interested there are toolkits out there – for example the Foresight Toolkit, scenarios for sustainability, and designing learning spaces. Surely something to inspire teachers about the benefits of creating a longer term vision that would influence their current planning would be of more use. But what tools would this contain? And what would you call such a set of materials? Would you seek out a “long term planning toolkit” when trying to find stuff to help you create a vision and an action plan to get you there?
Then what should go into such, for want of a better word, toolkit? There are sites out there that try and structure the planning – the TDA has a framework to help plan extended school, there are tools for managing change, the Carnegie UK trust has a toolkit to use its scenarios, and Futurelab has given various techniques for talking, exploring, capturing etc.
Thus my life currently revolves around what should go into this “toolkit”? Would it be something as simple as a checklist? Would examples, case studies, and testimonials cause reflection? Could we use pictures or artefacts to inspire people create stories about their possible futures? Should we raid business for examples of generating action plans? Oh the decisions.
And if you do think of a better name than “toolkit” please let me know.
