Philip Meissner

The development of strategy scenarios based on prospective hindsight

Purpose – Research focussed on the scenario method has increasingly criticized the widely used intuitive logics (IL) approach to scenario development and introduced enhanced approaches, such as the backwards logic method (BLM) or the antifragile (AF) method, to overcome the restrictions associated with the IL approach. The BLM and the AF method have contributed to the further development of the scenario method by integrating backward reasoning and by increasing the method’s effectiveness for decision making. The purpose of this paper is to build on these ideas and introduce strategy scenarios as a further enhancement of the scenario method that directly applies the benefits of scenario-based planning to strategy development in corporations. Design/methodology/approach – The authors argue that the existing methodologies do not fully integrate the benefits of scenario-based planning for strategic decision making and strategy development, as they mostly aim to develop macroenvironmental scenarios and test or...

Six tools for scenario-based strategic planning and their application

Scenario planning has often been criticized for the complexity that arises when it is grafted into a companys overall strategic planning process. To overcome this deficiency, we introduced the scenario-based approach to strategic planning in the previous chapter. This chapter explains each tool in detail, evaluates its practicability and demonstrates how executives can immediately apply the entire toolkit within their overall strategic planning process. To facilitate the application of the tools, each step is explained using a practical example from the European airline industry. Taken together, the detailed explanations that follow present a scenariobased strategic planning framework that can help companies cope with an uncertain, complex and volatile business environment.