2008 Speaker

Colleen Murray

 



ABSTRACT

“Setting Research Targets: Using a scenario planning process to envision how the world might change”

Researchers are often forced to make early strategic decisions. When working on explorative, future-looking projects, this can be incredible challenging. How can we best frame our research to solve future problems, when we don’t know what the future looks like?

People often overestimate how much things will change in twenty years and underestimate how much things will change in five. To overcome the vagaries of our own imaginations, Scenario Planning is a great tool to help imagine how the future might evolve. Developing scenarios forces us to think very broadly about the world and what’s happening in it. We can then use key indicators (such as consumer trends, new technologies, economic indicators, global politics, etc.) to evaluate how likely these things will merely be blips on the radar versus really change the way the world behaves. Funneling from observations to stories to implications gives us options for how to think about a business, resulting in better positioning the team to shape the direction of a project and identify areas to focus for research. Scenario Planning isn’t about predicting the future. But it can help identify the themes and strategic questions that are most important to understand and research, no matter what future comes to pass.

In this session, you will:

    -Get a better sense of how Scenario Planning fits within the context of an overall research planning process.

    -Understand the activities that make up a Scenario Planning process, including developing and communicating scenario worlds.

    -Use future scenarios as tools for learning, by highlighting strategic options and business implications.

    -Explore how to use Scenarios to frame and develop an explorative and qualitative research plan.

    BIO:


    Colleen Murray brings an interaction designer’s sensibility to the creation of compelling future strategies. Her design experience has helped her to better parse the relationship between people and the objects that surround them. A significant portion of Colleen’s work at Jump has focused on helping clients to map out potential new business opportunities. She has helped Jump to develop proprietary methods for analysis and identification of promising areas for growth. Her work has included explorations into a number of industries, including consumer electronics, digital entertainment and office environments. Colleen holds a Master’s degree in Design Planning from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a B.F.A. in Graphic Design from the University of Illinois.

     

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