Enhancing business and technology foresight with electronically mediated scenario process

Recent turmoil in the world has brought an interest toward creating business and technology foresight to understand the fundamental changes in business, as well as in the environment, society and technology. Especially technology management in changing markets has to deal with long lead times and high sunken costs, and hence handling the risk requires strategic agility and foresight. Scenarios, as a set of multiple possible future development paths, can inform decision makers of the drivers, which shape the future and thus help open-minded planning of actions. The objective of the study is to discuss the present scenario practice in relation to business and technology management, and to present a fresh alternative; the electronically mediated scenario process. Electronic tools offer an effective way to engage decision makers and stakeholders to the scenario process and facilitate efficient use of the time enabling equal contribution from diverse participants. This paper discusses two group support system (GSS)-mediated scenario methods, one heuristic and the other intuitive-logical, compares them to each other and to previous research. The contribution is a thorough discussion of the two method artifacts, highlighting their strengths, weaknesses and limitations, and positioning them to the present scenario practice.