Common futures research tools… identifying/monitoring change.
Data collection: historical analysis to identify cycles, database construction to identify trends.
- Historical/cultural/structural bias; hidden data gaps
Environmental scanning: emerging issues (’weak signals’) identification, evaluation, and analysis.
- Identification relies on familiarity with state-of-art
Assumption analysis: assumption identification and reversal, linked to emerging issues for ’wild card’ extrapolation.
- No rigorously defined identification method exists.