The Essence of Scenarios: Learning from the Shell Experience [Paperback]

In 1965, Royal Dutch Shell started experimenting with a new approach to preparing for the future. This approach, called scenario planning, eschewed forecasting in favor of plausible alternative stories. By using stories, or “scenarios,” Shell aimed to avoid the false assumption that the future would look much like the present—an assumption that marred most corporate planning at the time.The Essence of Scenariosoffers unmatched insight into the company’s innovative practice, which still has a huge influence on the way businesses, governments, and other organizations think about and plan for the future.

In the course of their research, Angela Wilkinson and Roland Kupers interviewed almost every living veteran of the Shell scenario planning operation, along with many top Shell executives from later periods. Drawing on these interviews, the authors identify several principles that characterize the Shell process and explain how it has survived and thrived for so long. They also enumerate the qualities of successful Shell scenarios, which above all must be plausible stories with logical trajectories. Ultimately, Wilkinson and Kupers demonstrate the value of scenario planning as a sustained practice, rather than as a one-off exercise.

Angela Wilkinsonis counselor for strategic foresight with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.Roland Kupersis an associate fellow in the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford.

Acknowledgements
Preface by Peter Ho
Introduction: The “Gentle Art”
Sources
 
I A Unique Legacy
 
II Shell Scenarios – A History, 1965-2013
Experimentation and Emergence, 1965-1981
Moving Closer to the Business, 1982-1990
Culture Change, 1990-1999
Cheaper, Deeper Thinking, 1999-2006
New Pathways to ‘Challenging and Heard’, lck