Scenario Planning in Organizations

2Theoretical Foundations of Scenario Planning

Theory is a dirty word in some managerial quarters. That is rather curious, because all of us, managers especially, can no more get along without theories than libraries can get along without catalogs—and for the same reason: theories help us make sense of incoming information.

—MINTZBERG (2005, p. 249)

Pierre Wack told a story about approaching a cliff. He talked about how the odds of falling over the cliff increase as you walk closer to the edge. He asserted that the best way to avoid falling over a cliff is to help people see the characteristics of the cliff in advance. He helped them see how tall and steep the cliff is. He taught them to calculate how many different kinds of cliffs there are, ...