SEMESTER: Fall 2018

COURSE NUMBER: MBA 277.1
The course is dual listed with the Evening-Weekend MBA Program

COURSE TITLE: Scenario Planning and Futures Thinking: tools, methods and approaches

UNITS OF CREDIT: 2 units

INSTRUCTOR: David Evan Harris

E-MAIL ADDRESS: deh@berkeley.edu

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: bCourses

COURSE DATES:

9/5

9/12

9/19

10/10

10/17

10/31

11/7

11/14

11/28

12/5

PREREQUISITE(S): Core

CAREER FIELD:
Applicable for students who are engaged in (or plan to be) long-term strategic decision making or planning for their organizations. This will be more useful for students who plan to work in medium to large organizations that can afford to dedicate significant employee time and resources to strategic planning for the long-term future. This course will primarily focus on the 5-10 year timeframe.

CLASS FORMAT: Mixed:

• 30% interactive foresight exercises
• 30% lecture
• 20% guest speakers
• 20% work on foresight consulting project

REQUIRED READINGS: Tentative – to be finalized in the syllabus
Schwartz, Peter, The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World Paperback, Paperback or Kindle edition, 1996
McGonigal, Jane, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, Penguin Press, 2011. (Chapters 1, 2, 11, 14)

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Tentative – to be finalized in the syllabus
Class Participation: 20%
Reading Responses: 30%
Final Project: 50%

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
This course presents a survey of tools, methods and approaches to scenario planning and futures thinking, drawn in large part from the work of the Institute for the Future (IFTF), an independent nonprofit research institute headquartered in Palo Alto. Founded in 1968 as a spinoff of the RAND Corporation, IFTF is known in the field of futures thinking as one of the few institutions to outlive its own forecasts. IFTF considers itself to be “methodologically agnostic,” using a variety of strategies to approach the field of futures thinking. IFTF brings foresight to leaders in government, business and the nonprofit sector to catalyze insights which lead to strategically informed action.
Learning Outcomes:

• Broad knowledge of approaches to scenario planning and futures thinking, both academic and applied in real-world business situations.
• Experience developing a project for a real world client, presenting them with scenarios or other futures thinking based content, and helping them to create new strategies based on the experience.
• Critical understanding of strengths and weaknesses of the multiple methodologies available within scenario planning and futures thinking.
• Ability to identify most appropriate methods for bringing foresight techniques into a variety of business situations.
• Working understanding of qualitative research methodologies and their strengths in certain applications for use instead of or in addition to quantitative approaches.

Coursework:

• Before each class, students will email to the group a one page maximum reading response, summarizing their reactions to that week’s assignments.
• During the semester, faculty and students will identify real world clients in a position to make strategic decisions for their companies or organizations on a five- to ten-year time horizon. Working alone or in groups of up to three, students will produce a report using scenario planning or other foresight methods, and present this report to the client. With the client, the students will have a discussion and seek to draw out potential real world actions that the client could take, and then summarize these actions in a final presentation for both classmates and the client.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
David Evan Harris
Chancellor’s Public Scholar, UC Berkeley
Foresight Strategist, Facebook
Research Affiliate, Institute for the Future
Founder, Global Lives Project
In April 2018, David joined Facebook’s civic engagement team as a foresight strategist. Before joining Facebook, David spent a decade at the Institute for the Future (IFTF), leading research on the future of philanthropy, media, governance, and social movements. In 2004, David founded the Global Lives Project, a video library of life experience around the world, produced by thousands of collaborating filmmakers, photographers and translators. David was appointed as the Chancellor’s Public Scholar in 2015 at UC Berkeley, for his teaching work at the Haas School of Business. David teaches courses on Civic Technology; Social Movements and Social Media; and Scenario Planning and Futures Thinking.
David has presented his work to audiences at the Smithsonian, Harvard, Stanford, Apple, Google, Adobe, United Nations University, among other institutions. His writings have been published by the BBC, Guardian, Adbusters, Focus on the Global South, Hivos, Alternet, Grist and translated into dozens of languages. David previously worked at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He studied at the University of São Paulo (M.S.) and UC Berkeley (B.A.). He speaks English, Portuguese, Spanish and French. David’s work has been supported by groups including the National Endowment for the Arts, Adobe Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Long Now Foundation, Black Rock Arts Foundation, Christensen Fund and the Goldman Fund.
Detailed bio: https://facultybio.haas.berkeley.edu/faculty-list/harris-david/