7 Questions to map your future

7 Questions to map your future
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com / Unsplash

I evoked last week how clever expedients are useful for innovators, and I wanted to share one example this Friday. It's a simple brain twister Shell developed when bright people were roaming their offices.

It can be used as a game or interactive facilitation technique about how a team deals with the future of its business. And it revolves around seven perfectly tuned questions to map out one's perspective on the future of a market.

Shall we play together?

  1. If you could spend some time with someone who knew the future of [ your market ] but only had one question, what would be the critical thing you'd ask?
  2. If things went really well in the next few years, how would you expect [ your market ] to develop, and what would be the main achievement to speak of?
  3. If [ your market ] would unravel, what would be the main cause to worry about?
  4. From your knowledge of the culture, systems, resources, and people involved, which impact the most [ your organization], and how would these have to be changed to achieve the optimistic outcome?
  5. What factors shaped ten years ago [ your market ] as it is today?
  6. What decisions would need to be made rapidly to achieve the desired long-term outcome for [ your market ]?
  7. Finally, what more would you do if you were in power to ensure a successful future for [ your organization]?

At the time, Shell usually ran these interview sessions with a dozen key collaborators around a clearly defined challenge to overcome. The back-and-forth probing on both speculative views, current perspective, and operational bottlenecks were quite robust in delivering actionable insights.  


Great! You’ve successfully signed up.

Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.

You've successfully subscribed to innovation copilots.

Success! Check your email for magic link to sign-in.

Success! Your billing info has been updated.

Your billing was not updated.