Migration Landscapes: Making the Future Accessible!

One of the problems with Futures Studies theory and application is actualizing it within organizational and social domains and disciplines. This isn’t because people don’t care about the future. In reality, every one of us think about the future everyday. The problem is that most of us don’t tend to think and act with any level of seriousness about the future beyond a few days, or maybe a week. (Longer than this and we just write it down in our daily planner as something to be considered at a later time.) If foresight strategists want organizations and society to prepare for possible futures and aim for desired futures, they need to find ways to help people take smaller steps toward the plausibility or goal, experiencing celebrations and contemplation along the journey.

“Migration Landscapes” offer the ability to effectively move toward the future in attainable steps, developing a strategic map that outlines the path that should be taken in order to arrive at the preferred outcome. As Dortmans stated:

“Migration landscapes indicate options for transition in order to provide a road map for development (if we have the freedom to do this) or at least, they indicate potential pathways along which transition can occur, indicating the possible preconditions for change and so allowing for contingency planning to combat these. This means that a migration landscape is not merely an extrapolation of trends. Rather it is a web where possible alternate paths are signified by the interconnected strands of the web. The distinct pathways evolve from changes in the environment or in technology futures terms, to the realisation (or not) of projected discoveries. Therefore, connections between these strands provide the opportunity for making decisions. Identifying the significant points then provides a strategy for planning, in that most major decisions are projected in advance… we need to create migration landscapes that focus towards some intermediate (realizable) point (or points) that can mediate between the aspired to and the projected. This point should be sufficiently far into the future to accommodate change but sufficiently well defined so as to allow for the commitment of resources… determination of migration landscapes indicates transition strategies and the associated decisions necessary over time. This identifies choice, and leads to a final, pivotal consequence; that the strategic planning activity is dependent on the context and the opportunity this provides… the mapping to migration landscapes and intermediate states provides a basis for developing strategies for change that will be continually modified as new knowledge arises.”

This foresight tool not only offers a means to implementing futures thinking within organizational culture, but also helps businesses and social domains to better grasp systems thinking, revealing the structures, variables, and leverage points that lead to certain behavior. When organizations have a clear view of the systems that drive their environment and create their behavior, they will be able to successfully navigate and alter outcomes and opportunities. Migration Landscapes also offer a “tie-in” to Spiral Dynamics, allowing those within any collaborative enterprise greater insight while walking through the evolutionary steps of the value staircase. Further, the utilization of Migration Landscapes creates an “open” mentality that reveals the possibility of multiple paths in reaching a specific future outcome. This can help an organization to avoid a linear mindset that thwarts innovation or fails to account for the complexities that are involved in producing aspirational futures or preparing for various possibilities.

Now I realize that it sounds like I’m trying to sell Migration Landscapes as the ultimate futures tool, and I’m not. I’m simply trying to say that any technique – quantitative and/or qualitative – that helps enhance the visibility of Future Studies and futurist thought/practice throughout the drivers of humanity is a very good thing!

Reference:

Forecasting, backcasting, migration landscapes and strategic planning maps
Peter J Dortmanns. Futures. Kidlington: May 2005. Vol. 37, Iss. 4; p. 273