Foresight session. Thinking about the future with “foresight”

Foresight session "School of the Future" Education of the future is one of the most interesting and actively discussed topics.

The best minds of our time make predictions and conduct discussions about what the education of the next generations should be like. How to implement blended learning? Will education become lifelong learning? What technologies will it be impossible to imagine the school of the future without? Where will the growing popularity of homeschooling lead?

Experts give their own weighty conclusions to all these questions.

The task of the “School of the Future” foresight session is to go down a “turn” lower, to end users and enter into an active dialogue with those who are directly related to the school today.

For the first time, school teachers, students and parents are invited to the discussion at the same time. What vision of the future will they support? Will their opinion coincide with the experts? What's new in the joint discussion?

A foresight session will allow you to:

Teachers - to define their position on reforms and become agents of changes in the education of the future.

Parents - to tell about the experience of interacting with schools, find their zones of influence and responsibility in the process of transformations and establish cooperation between the school and parents in the future.

And most importantly, a foresight session as a group event will allow for a full-fledged dialogue between parents, children and teachers. Having created a coherent picture of the future, the participants will discover a new vision of the situation, new opportunities and ways of their implementation.

The foresight session will take place on November 9 and 10 (be sure to be present within 2 days) from 15:00 to 18:00 at the address: 21 Horoshevskoe shosse (building GBOU School No. 1288)

Chief Foresight Session Moderator- Elena Ivanchuk

Organizers:

All-Russian project "Generation 2084" https://www.facebook.com/groups/pokolenie2084

Center "StartUp in Life" (project of the School of New Technologies and School No. 1288)

Contact details:

Olga Kuvaeva (curator of the center "StartUp in Life", +7 985 224 01 43,)

Elena Ivanchuk (head of the all-Russian project "Generation 2084")

The Generation 2084 project was launched in February 2016. It is based on a new competitive methodology.

System of exponential development of applied knowledge
HR export
Leading positions in world rankings of educational institutions
Implementation of the system of continuing professional education

Promoting the professions of the future
Early professional self-identification of preschoolers and schoolchildren
Implementation of a project-based training system
The culture of intergenerational continuity
Development of a mentoring system
Ability to work and develop in a team
Creation of a favorable environment for interaction between youth and future employers

Group for participants

The modern education system prioritizes the upbringing of successful people who are ready to make choices, to make independent, constructive decisions. The planning of life and professional prospects, the choice of value priorities cause difficulties for students in educational organizations. The narrow and uneven perspective of professional and personal development dooms them to a limited range of life manifestations, while interest in the professional future as a field of self-realization disappears.

To make the optimal choice in a situation of professional self-determination, a person needs to have the skills to form the temporal perspective of life, to model a picture in the future. The temporal perspective of the future is a mental projection of the semantic sphere of a person, which combines aspirations, fears, hopes and plans. To talk about the future in a substantive manner, various tools for collective forecasting and design have been developed and are increasingly being used, one of which is foresight.

Foresight is a technology for working with images of the future. Foresight proceeds from the assumption that there are many options for a possible future, and the future that will really come depends largely on the actions taken today. Thus, foresight requires a conscious, “proactive” attitude towards the future and the recognition that choices made today can influence the shaping or even create a picture of tomorrow. Foresight methods can be perceived as a kind of accelerators of consciousness. How breakthrough ideas turn out to be depends on the initial creativity of the team and its individual members, on their ability to creatively use the proposed exercises.

A foresight session can become an open design workshop for students to realize the most relevant and environmentally friendly direction for the development of their lives, create a basis for making effective decisions, the emergence of fresh, easy-to-implement ideas, a charge of energy and confidence in the future. It differs significantly from “global” foresights, is of a purely applied nature, and its duration ranges from 2 to 4 hours.

The task of the session participants is not only to create an image of their future, but also to develop a "road map", a kind of strategic navigator that will help to quickly plot a route on the way to the set goals.

During the session it is IMPORTANT:

Use the energy of the team's positive thinking when the joint project is a visualization of the desired future (the team is initially set to “plus”);

Combine the stages of creative and analytical thinking effectively and in the correct sequence.

Foresight session model

An example of conducting a foresight session "Effective technologies for success"

Goal: creating the desired image of the future and determining strategies for achieving it. Tasks:

Formation of a single "field of ideas" of the session participants about current trends and future events. Drawing up by the participants of the session a "map of the future", describing the main possible events that will affect the achievement of the desired goals. The participants in the session agree on their positions regarding the essential factors influencing the achievement of the set goals. Formation of a "road map" for a successful future.

Required materials: whiteboard or flipchart, flipchart paper, colored markers, Whatman paper for each small group, a set of stickers.

Leading (facilitator): educational psychologist, social educator, curator, tutor.

Target audience: 15-25 people.

Session time: 2-4 hours

Introduction

speaks out and prescribes (on a flipchart or on a presentation slide) the purpose and main objectives of the session, the route of work, the main results that should be obtained in the course of group activities; announces the rules of procedure; establishes the rules for group interaction.

Then the presenter gives the participants a definition of a foresight, examines the concept of a trend1 with them, conducts a small discussion on the topic of what is success, a successful person, a successful future. Participants are given the installation that the future is not predetermined, its foundation is laid by our present actions and decisions.

Task number 1.

The team of participants is divided into several small groups. In small groups, brainstorming is conducted on the topic of finding current trends in modern society. The groups also determine which trends need to be supported to form success in different spheres of society and their lives, and which trends hinder the development and improvement of the individual and society as a whole. Each highlighted trend is recorded on a sticker, then it is glued onto a flipchart.

Task number 2.

The groups are given the task, taking into account the previously identified positive trends, to model and draw their own image of a successful future as they see it in five years.

You can invite the group to imagine the future metaphorically using the “Map of a Successful Future” exercise. The exercise will allow you to increase the level of your potential capabilities, expand the horizon of your worldview, learn how to more clearly and consciously formulate goals.

Exercise "Map of the future" .2

Draw a map of your successful future. Designate your global goals as points of the area in which you would like to be. Also mark intermediate big and small goals on the way to them. Come up with and write down names for the “goal points” you are striving for in your personal and professional life. Draw also the streets and roads along which you will walk.

How will you get to your goals? By the shortest or workaround way?

What obstacles do you have to overcome?

How much help can you count on?

What terrain will you have to cross on your way: flourishing and fertile lands, deserts, wilderness and abandoned places?

Will you make roads and paths alone or with someone?

You can imagine your successful future in the form of drawings cut out from magazines pasted on whatman paper.

Task number 3.

After completing the work on modeling a successful future, the groups are invited to develop personalities for 5 years and include the main activities in the roadmap.

An example of a roadmap (trends and main events are spelled out on stickers).

At the end of the session, participants need to present their projects.

Conclusion

At the last stage, the group, with the support of the facilitator:

denotes results (“What have we achieved after all?”); makes decisions regarding the strategies developed at the session; evaluates joint work during the session and draws conclusions for the future.

A foresight session is considered successful if the participants have gone through all three stages: they created an image of the future, drew a scenario map, and agreed on ways to achieve it. If in one session it is not possible to work out all three positions, then the facilitator conducts several cycles of foresight sessions with the group.

A foresight session can lay a high-quality foundation for organizing work on the professional and personal support of students. By reviewing and analyzing the activities of the roadmap, educators can actively engage in collaborative work with learners, offering them cooperation and support. It is possible to conduct trainings, seminars, organize various projects.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"Theory and methodology" http: // lit. lib. ru / t / trushnikow_d_j / indexdate. shtml "Breakout Life Generation". - M .: MANN, IVANOV AND FERBER, 2015.

1 Trend - trend; an important, noticeable direction in the development of something.

2 http: // trenerskaya. ru / article / view / uprazhneniya-pro-celi

There are two main ways of working with the future:

Long-term planning - setting goals based on linear quantitative assessments from the past through the present. In many ways, this method appeared due to the long periods of technological orders, when the infrequent emergence of new innovations made it possible to make plans for a long time.
The scenario approach is based on the variability of the future. Possible modifications of the future are analyzed and managers choose the most suitable one, removing obstacles, prepare for possible risks.

At first, people tried to understand current trends, the factors of their development, assess their capabilities and, based on this, calculate a long-term goal. But over time, the dynamics of change increased and this approach began to fail seriously. Alternatively, methods based on scenario thinking have begun to be applied. We will talk about one of these today (or get acquainted with a more modern approach.

Foresight

Foresight (vision of the future) is understood as a methodology of collective work to research the future with the aim of building it by identifying expert knowledge.

The approach is based on the following postulates:

The future may be different;
It cannot be predicted reliably;
It depends on our actions and the future can be created;
Predictions about the future allow us to make it the way we want it;
For the future, there is a struggle between different images and the people behind them.

The methodology is based on a survey of experts to determine possible future scenarios and the choice of the most preferable one. Working together allows you to create a unified position and build social connections. This way of forecasting:

is a systematic repetitive well-organized process;
designed for the long term;
includes stakeholders in the work;
aimed at real action.

There are three stages of working with the future:

Strategic thinking - exploring the future;
Making strategic decisions;
Implementation of the decisions made.

Today, the mainstream view of foresight is largely shaped by the book Thinking about the Future. Guide to Strategic Foresight ”by P. Bishop. The work describes five stages:

Selection of the object of forecasts - the customer sets the boundaries of research interests;
Determination of important conditions - qualitative and quantitative indicators of the desired future;
Scanning - the process of identifying participants, research methods;
Alternatives of the future - clarification of current trends regarding the object of forecasts, zones of uncertainty, future scenarios;
Planning and Execution - Create roadmaps for changing circumstances.

Building the future can take place through:

Material resources;
Authorities;
Connections;
Formation of the agenda.

Rapid Foresight

There are different modifications of foresight and further description of the work on this method will be done on the example of Rapid Foresight (high-speed foresight) with which I had to work. It differs from the classical methodology in that:

does not require “heavy” budgets;
takes a little time;
experts work in conjunction with diagrams and images, not texts;
the main results are obtained during the forecasting work and immediately after it.

The work on the method of high-speed foresight is a session in which experts take part. Such a session has a customer for shaping the future. At the moment of contact, the customer is at one of the stages of the transformation of the future. Accordingly, work using the foresight method is performed for a specific stage.

High-speed foresight results can be:

Reliable forecast of the future;
Coordination of positions and uniting people;
Knowledge in the variable area and in the application of foresight;
Diagnostics of the qualifications of the participants and their skills of collective activity;
Creation of road maps and implementation projects;
Solving specific problems taking into account the picture of the future;
Creation of materials for the further work of the management team.

Time map

The key idea of the method is a time map, which is a plane where time intervals are measured from right to left, and trends are measured from bottom to top.

Cards are used to mark the time cards, which are filled in by the participants. They describe trends related to one of the types:

technology,
format,
event,
normative act,
threat.

The cards indicate the year of the trend, according to which it is placed on one of the time zones. The timeline has a horizon of decades and consists of four stages:

Soon. Today's trends are likely to bear fruit for a short time frame.
Middle horizon. Cards are placed with information about phenomena, trends, threats that are important for the present, but so far there are only prerequisites for their breakthrough in the average time perspective.
Far line. The cards presented here describe objects that will be formed as a result of the development of existing trends, qualitative leaps in existing technologies, crossing of different directions.
Incredible (black swans). This section includes cards proposed by one of the experts, but did not receive the consent of the others. Those. we are talking about events that in the opinion of the majority of participants will never happen.

The work in groups is determined by the sequence of placing the cards:

Discussion of the subject of work, clarification of its boundaries, etc.
Placement on the map of cards of the main trends that have an increasing or decreasing effect on the subject area (for example, an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere of large cities).
Placement on the map of technologies in the subject area (for example, self-driving cars).
Placement of formats on the trend line (for example, a motorists club).
Placement of regulations (any laws governing activities in the subject area).
Placing threats and opportunities on the map is a subjective assessment of the phenomena posted on the site from the point of view of the subjects. Typical subjects are territory, company, industry, community. The emergence of new subjects is noted on a separate flip chart.
Placement on the map of events - point significant events that can change trends.

Structure

For the effective organization of a foresight session, a structure in the form of a description of roles is proposed. One and the same person can fulfill several roles.

The holder of communications with the customer is responsible for the relationship with the customer from setting the task to the presentation of the results.
Moderator - organizes the design of the foresight session and its implementation.
Moderators - organizes communication during the session. If there is more than one group, each of them has its own moderator. To simplify the work in one group, there can be two moderators.
The collector - keeps record of events during the session, monitors the dynamics of the group's work, the moments of looping.
Analyst - prepares report templates, is responsible for generating a general report.
Administrator - monitors the lines and provides the participants with everything they need.
Experts are specialists in areas related to the task at hand, who host participants in the session.

The optimal number of participants is from 5 to 15, but not more than 25. Participants can be divided into subgroups. Each subgroup has a moderator who organizes the filling out of the time map by the participants.

conclusions

I had to take part, both in the format described above, and in a modified one. For example, the methodology described above included a foresight session on defining the future of consulting and developing typical strategies for survival in the consulting market. The key takeaways that I made while working on bugs after the event:

it is necessary to delineate specific boundaries for the subject of discussion;
requires serious preparation (more than one day) of experts before the event on a specific subject;
the moderator's job should be not so much in managing the session as in creating conditions for communication and developing a common language of communication.

When I worked on this method in business structures, then among the experts, the leaders of the company, who directly manage, took part mainly. Therefore, the results obtained immediately become a part of further work, and do not lie in a beautiful binding on the shelf behind the back of the chief executive. Blindness of the participants becomes a problem (not all companies are ready to invite outside experts). This issue can be resolved if the company's management solves the problem not for its own company, but as if acting as experts for a competing company.

Today the foresight method is a popular change management tool. But its fundamental foundations impose certain restrictions, linking experts with mental frames (frames). As mentioned above, foresight is based on the scenario approach of nonlinear systems. The idea is to analyze the past and continue possible alternative development trends. But the possibilities of knowing the past are as small as predicting the future - one can say, as there are experts, there are so many variants of the past. In addition, the future depends on the efforts of the agents of change. Therefore, I find a more productive technology to work. It allows not to predict, but to create the desired future by organizing the activities of stakeholders.

Links

What is foresight? Foresight is a technology (session) of long-term forecasting, a way to build a consistent, balanced What is foresight?
Foresight is
technology (session)
long-term forecasting,
way of building
coordinated, balanced and
responsible vision of the future.

Foresight is a teamwork of participants on a time map. This is not work with texts, but with images and diagrams. Contributors and contributors are not easy

What is the basis of the Foresight methodology?
Foresight is collaboration
participants on the time map. This
work not with texts, but with images and
schemes.
Contributors and contributors don't just rate
probabilities and risks, but design
their activities. The result
foresight becomes "Map of the future".

Basic principles of foresight:

The future depends on the efforts made, its
can create
The future does not flow from the past, it depends
from the decision of the foresight participants
In general, the future cannot be predicted reliably,
can prepare or prepare the future
the way we want it to be.

Objectives of the foresight session

Forecast - obtaining a reliable "map of the future",
describing the main events that will affect
industry \ territory \ organization in the described future
Communication - agreement by the main stakeholders
parties / experts of their positions regarding
factors influencing the development of the future. Creation
burly cards of the future.
Education - the formation of a single "field of ideas"
foresight participants.
Diagnostics - determining the quality of views
participants about the future.

Basic units of foresight

Trend
Trend is the basic unit of foresight. This
external stable tendencies, important,
a noticeable direction in the development of something.
Examples of trends:
Share of social design in
education has increased.
There is an outflow of children's activity into
social networks.
Educational complexes are being enlarged.

Technologies

A set of methods, processes and
materials used in any
branches of activity, as well as scientific
description of methods of technical production.
Technology example:
Activist e-portfolio
Social engineering

Format

Method of construction and presentation, form
holding any event, event
Format example:
Social Engineering Workshop
Oratory development training

Events

What takes place happens comes to a point
space-time; significant incident
phenomenon or other activity as a fact of social
or personal life.
Example event:
Social Engineering Festival
Contest "Leader and his team"

Law

Normative legal act that is being adopted
representative (legislative) body
state power.
Example of a law:
Supplements to the Federal Law "On Education" about student
self-government
Order of the Moscow Government

Threat

Potential danger
Threat example:
The outflow of activity completely into the virtual
space
Lack of funding for social
designing

Fields on cards

All cards have:
1) Title
2) Description
3) Probability
4) Author
5) The trend to which it belongs (except for the cards themselves
trends)

Additional fields

For a trend:
1) Years of the trend: from ______ to ______
2) Type of trend (stable, indefinite, fading)
For Technology, Format, Event, Threat, Law:
1) Year of appearance
For Technology and Format
1) The year of the beginning of widespread use in society or industry

Working with the time map

First measure
Trends are attached to the map.
On the map, trends are indicated by lines depending on the type
Over time, trends can change their character, which is indicated
changing the line type
Second measure
Attached cards of technologies, event formats, threats and
normative acts.
Unrecognized, unlikely, but interesting technologies
go to the field "black swans". This procedure is repeated for
all cards.

Third measure
Participants find and mark connections between
elements
Fourth measure
Assessment, criticism and addition of cards

Foresight is a system of methods for expert assessment of strategic directions of socio-economic and innovative development, identification of technological breakthroughs that can have an impact on the economy and society in the medium and long term.

Expert judgment is the basis for assessing future options. The Foresight methodology has incorporated dozens of traditional and fairly new expert methods. At the same time, they are constantly being improved, methods and procedures are being worked out, which provides an increase in the validity of foreseeing the prospects for scientific, technical and socio-economic development. The main vector of development of the methodology is aimed at a more active and purposeful use of the knowledge of experts involved in projects. Typically, each of the foresight projects uses a combination of different methods, including expert panels, Delphi (expert polls in two stages), SWOT analysis, brainstorming, scenario building, technological roadmaps, relevance trees, analysis of mutual influence, etc. To take into account all possible options and get a complete picture, as a rule, a significant number of experts are involved. So, in Japanese long-term forecasts of scientific and technological development, carried out every five years, more than 2 thousand experts take part, who represent all the most important areas of development of science, technology and technology, and more than 10 thousand experts participated in the latest Korean project.

Foresight is focused not only on identifying possible alternatives, but also on choosing the most preferable ones.

During the selection process, various criteria are applied to determine the most preferred options. So, for example, when choosing critical technologies, the criterion for achieving maximum economic growth can be used, and when building a technological roadmap for the industry, identifying potential market niches and choosing technologies that make it possible to develop competitive products for emerging markets as quickly as possible. The choice of a development strategy is made on the basis of a sequence of broad expert consultations, which makes it possible to foresee the most unexpected paths of development of events and possible "pitfalls".

Foresight proceeds from the fact that the onset of the “desirable” future option largely depends on the actions taken today, therefore the choice of options is accompanied by the development of measures that ensure the optimal trajectory of innovative development.

Most foresight projects include science and technology perspectives as a central component. Usually, these issues become the subject of discussion not only by scientists, but also by politicians, businessmen, and practitioners from different sectors of the economy. The result of such discussions is the emergence of new ideas related to the improvement of science management mechanisms, the integration of science, education and industry and, ultimately, an increase in the competitiveness of a country, industry or region. In addition, the very organization of systematic attempts to “look into the future” leads to the formation of a higher management culture and, as a result, to the formation of a more grounded scientific, technical and innovation policy.

Foresight projects are focused not only on gaining new knowledge in the form of reports, a set of scenarios, recommendations, etc. An important result is the development of informal relationships between their participants, the creation of a unified view of the situation.

In a number of projects, the formation of horizontal networks, platforms within which scientists and businessmen, university professors and officials, specialists in related fields can systematically discuss common problems, is seen as one of the main effects.

Foresight is organized as a systematic process that must be carefully planned and organized. As a rule, Foresight projects are carried out quite regularly, sometimes according to a repeating pattern (like the Japanese long-term forecast, which is carried out every 5 years, starting in 1971), in other cases, research is carried out as a sequence of interrelated projects aimed at solving a set of interrelated problems and forming an agreed vision of the long-term prospects for the development of technology, innovation and society.

Foresight is a much more comprehensive approach than traditional forecasting.

First, forecasts, as a rule, are formed by a narrow circle of experts and in most cases are associated with predictions of uncontrollable events (forecasting stock prices, weather, sports results, etc.). Foresight deals with assessing the possible prospects for innovative development associated with the progress of science and technology, outlining possible technological horizons that can be achieved by investing certain funds and organizing systematic work, as well as the likely effects for the economy and society.

Second, Foresight always implies the participation (often through intensive mutual discussions) of many experts from all spheres of activity, to one degree or another related to the topic of a particular foresight project, and sometimes also conducting surveys of certain groups of the population (residents of the region, youth, etc. etc.), directly interested in solving the problems discussed in the framework of the project.

The third main difference between Foresight and traditional forecasts is its focus on developing practical measures to approximate the selected strategic guidelines.