Hands-on Introduction to Futures Thinking and Foresight with the Future Ripples Method

Abstract

Global and systemic sustainability challenges increasingly require innovation teams to incorporate holistic, long-term thinking in their ideation practises. However, as any full-scale foresight process would be heavy to carry out, there is a need for a more rapid method. The goal of this tutorial is to teach participants how to approach technology innovation practice with a more holistic and sustainable mindset. For this, we will introduce and use the Future Ripples method, a light-weight, participatory activity to brainstorm future consequences of signals or trends. The method aligns with the first steps of a traditional foresight process and thus aims at developing futures thinking and anticipatory capacities.