What is Strategic Foresight?
Strategic foresight, also known as futures thinking, is a systematic approach to exploring potential future scenarios, trends, and possibilities. It's not about predicting the future. Rather, it examines a range of possibilities and understands how these insights might impact strategy, planning, and design.
Futures thinking involves analysis, critical thinking, imagination, and curiosity. Professional futures workshop facilitation helps organisations navigate uncertainty and shape desirable futures through structured exploration of what might happen, what could happen, and what should happen.
New to futures thinking? Read a practical introduction
Why Organisations Need Strategic Foresight Training
Research shows that companies recognising that the future might change their business foundation, preparing for it, and changing course accordingly are 33% more profitable than average companies. Vigilant companies achieved 200% higher growth rates than average Corporate foresight improves company performance. However, just one in five companies strategically prepares itself for future movements in the market, and just one in 20 companies adjusts its course of action accordingly Corporate foresight improves company performance.
of participants recommend this workshop to friends and colleagues
Futures Thinking Workshop Learning Outcomes:
Through strategic foresight training with a professional facilitator, participants will:
- Understand concepts, tools and approaches needed to think like a futurist;
- Challenge your organisation’s conventional view of the future, and help identify tomorrow’s problems today;
- Identify how the drivers of change might affect your organisation;
- Anticipate possible, probable, problematic and preferred futures; and
- Apply what you've learned to develop an action plan to help drive and inform your strategy.
Learn how to develop future scenarios in preparation for a group workshop
Organisations that intentionally plan for the future outperform their peers in terms of profitability and overall valuation.
However just 1 in 5 companies strategically prepares itself for future movements in the market, and just 1 in 20 adjusts its course of action accordingly
(Corporate Foresight Improves, 2018)
Your Facilitator and Futurist, Kit Hindin
Kit is a professional facilitator and coach, having worked in the innovation, entrepreneurship and futures space with educators, executives and startups.
A Certified Foresight Practitioner trained with Metafutures and in Natural Foresight Framework by The Futures School, Kit is also a certified master NLP practitioner.
"I'm not an expert on your organisation, or someone that predicts the future. My skillset lies in facilitating a strategic futures process for your team (the actual experts on your organisation). The workshops are designed to challenge, energise, blow open the minds of participants, and surface hidden opportunities, threats and potential futures that could affect your organisation."
Let's discuss your workshop needs. I will ask about your objectives, context, and constraints. You will learn whether facilitation makes sense and what approach might work.
No obligation. Just conversation about what you need.
Prefer to start with email? Share details about your workshop needs and I will respond with questions and initial thoughts.
Professional Endorsements
Of all the professionals I have worked with I consider Kit one of the very best for creative, design and strategic foresight. I’ve been working with Kit for more than 10 years. We’ve had a number of tasks over the years that required a focus on detail and the ‘big picture’. Kit’s communication skills mean that we nail the task in half the time. Professionalism, honesty and integrity wrapped up with a great sense of humour.
I worked with Kit over a number of years. Kit is a wonderful, thoughtful , deep thinking and empathetic facilitator who has a real commitment to people and to helping them to be their best. Kit is a rare human who can both look after the details and the people. I look forward to working with them again in the future.
Kit has major expertise in designing and facilitating workshops and delivering high quality events. They are one of Aotearoa New Zealand's emerging leaders in the futures and foresight space, having trained with some of the finest practitioners globally. Kit has a unique ability to 'use the future' today, combining tried and true futures tools with a commitment to action. Anyone working with Kit will gain many new skills and have a wider view of the futures landscape.
I’ve experienced Kit’s facilitation several times and it is rare to find someone as capable and skilled in their art. Kit is instantly able to command attention, build engagement, make people feel at ease and guide the flow of an event fluidly. Highly recommended!
I’ve had the pleasure of working with Kit for over 5 years and know that their facilitation will always be fun, engaging, professional, and focused on delivering outcomes. Kit has a unique mix of skills in strategic foresight, entrepreneurship and innovation, and coaching which gives them the empathy and know-how to facilitate groups through tough conversations. They are an exemplary facilitator, strategist, and coach and have consistently overdelivered in all of our engagements together.
Kit has the powerful ability to intimately empathize with their client’s needs while catalyzing that client’s curiosity and courage to imagine and design toward a more creative and just future. I am eternally grateful for my work with Kit.
I've had the privilege of watching Kit work for some years, and working with them directly more recently. Kit is skilled, energetic, compassionate and highly professional. As a facilitator, Kit is inclusive and enthusiastic; as a programme designer, thoughtful and outcomes-focused. I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Kit for any facilitation or coaching work - you'll be lucky to work with them!
Workshop Formats & Options
Strategic Foresight Training Options
Best for: Leadership teams, strategy groups, innovation teams new to futures thinking
Best for: Organisations planning major strategic decisions, market entries, or transformation programmes
Best for: Executive teams, boards, senior leadership planning multi-year organisational strategy
Futures thinking reveals where you're heading. Values work clarifies who you want to be when you get there. Learn more about values workshop facilitation.
Client Testimonials
Adam Heath
CEO
FMG Insurance
Mawera Karetai
Director
The Bay Trust
Jane Sheard
CEO
Nelmac
Lisa Bennett
Managing Director
Dynamix
Frequently Asked Questions: Futures Workshop Facilitation
Futures thinking (also called strategic foresight) is a structured approach to exploring multiple possible futures and using those insights to make better decisions today.
It's not about predicting the future. Nobody can do that reliably. Instead, futures thinking helps you:
Anticipate change. Spot weak signals, emerging trends, and shifts that could affect your organisation before they become obvious.
Challenge assumptions. Question what you take for granted about how the future will unfold. Most strategic failures come from unexamined assumptions.
Expand options. Consider multiple possible futures rather than planning for one predicted future. This reveals opportunities and threats you'd otherwise miss.
Make robust decisions. Choose strategies that work across different scenarios rather than betting everything on one version of the future.
Why it matters: Organisations that engage with futures thinking regularly outperform peers in profitability and overall valuation. Yet only 1 in 5 companies strategically prepares for future movements in the market.
In a world of increasing uncertainty, futures thinking gives leadership teams the tools to navigate complexity and shape preferred futures rather than simply reacting to change.
They're complementary, not competing approaches.
Strategic planning typically asks: Where do we want to go? How do we get there? It's about setting direction and allocating resources based on analysis of your current position.
Futures thinking asks: What futures are possible? What's changing around us? What might disrupt our plans? It's about exploring uncertainty and expanding your strategic options.
The relationship:
Futures thinking strengthens strategic planning by:
- Revealing opportunities and threats strategic analysis might miss
- Testing strategies against multiple scenarios
- Challenging assumptions about the future
- Building adaptive capacity in your leadership team
Many organisations integrate both. We use futures thinking to explore scenarios and trends before setting strategy. This ensures your strategic plans account for uncertainty rather than assuming one predictable future.
Strategic planning gives you direction. Futures thinking helps you navigate uncertainty along the way.
A futures thinking workshop guides your leadership team through structured exploration of possible futures and their implications for your organisation.
Typical workshop elements:
Futures thinking foundations. Introduction to key concepts, tools, and how futures thinking supports better decision-making. Most participants need this orientation.
Horizon scanning. Identifying trends, drivers of change, and weak signals that could shape your organisation's future. What's changing in your environment?
Scenario development. Creating multiple plausible future scenarios. Not predicting what will happen, but exploring what could happen and preparing for different possibilities.
Implications analysis. Examining what these futures mean for your organisation. What opportunities emerge? What threats? What assumptions might be wrong?
Strategic insights. Translating futures exploration into actionable insights for strategy, planning, or decision-making.
Specific tools might include:
- The Futures Wheel for exploring consequences
- Scenario planning for multiple futures
- Backcasting from preferred futures
- Drivers of change analysis
Horizon scanning frameworks
The workshop is highly interactive. Your team actively explores futures together rather than passively receiving information.
No. Futures thinking is for everyone who makes decisions about the future, which includes all leadership teams.
You don't need:
- A background in futures studies
- Technical foresight expertise
- To become a professional futurist
You do need:
- Willingness to question assumptions
- Openness to exploring uncertainty
- Commitment to thinking beyond next quarter
My role as facilitator: I bring the futures thinking expertise, frameworks, and methodologies. Your team brings expertise about your organisation, industry, and challenges. Together, we explore implications and develop insights.
Futures thinking workshops are designed for leadership teams without foresight training. The tools are accessible, the process is structured, and the focus is on practical application to your real decisions.
Many participants find futures thinking refreshing because it creates space for the big-picture strategic conversation they rarely have time for in daily operations.
I use proven futures thinking methodologies tailored to your needs and context.
Core frameworks:
Scenario Planning. Developing multiple plausible future scenarios to explore different ways your environment might evolve. Helps test strategies and identify robust decisions.
The Futures Wheel. Mapping ripple effects and consequences of changes, trends, or decisions. Reveals second and third-order impacts you might otherwise miss.
Horizon Scanning. Systematically identifying trends, weak signals, and drivers of change that could affect your organisation's future.
Backcasting. Working backwards from a preferred future to identify what needs to happen to get there. Particularly useful for innovation and transformation.
Drivers of Change Analysis. Identifying the forces shaping your future across political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and other dimensions.
Three Horizons Framework. Exploring how current systems decline, emerging innovations grow, and new futures develop over time.
My training: Certified Foresight Practitioner through Metafutures and Natural Foresight Framework through The Futures School. This ensures you get rigorous methodology, not generic brainstorming.
The specific tools depend on your workshop goals. Strategic planning work might emphasise scenarios. Innovation work might focus on horizon scanning. Transformation might use backcasting.
Half-day workshops (3-4 hours) introduce futures thinking concepts and explore initial scenarios or trends. Good for leadership teams new to foresight or addressing specific questions.
Full-day workshops (6-7 hours) allow comprehensive futures exploration with multiple methodologies, deep scenario development, and strategic implications. Most futures work benefits from a full day.
Multi-day workshops (2-3 days) enable deep foresight work, extensive scenario development, or integration with strategic planning. Often split across weeks for reflection between sessions.
The honest answer: Quality futures thinking takes time. You're expanding how your leadership team thinks about the future, not just gathering information. Half-day sessions work for introducing concepts, but transformative futures work typically needs a full day or more.
Many organisations start with a full-day futures workshop, then integrate foresight into ongoing strategic processes. The initial investment builds capability your team can apply continuously.
Industry Applications
What to Expect from Futures Workshop Facilitation
Professional futures thinking facilitation creates structured space for your team to:
- Challenge assumptions about how your industry, market, or organisation will evolve
- Explore multiple futures rather than betting on a single predicted outcome
- Identify weak signals of change that competitors might miss
- Develop strategic responses that work across different possible futures
- Build organisational capability for ongoing foresight and adaptive strategy
Workshops combine proven futures methodologies from organisations like the Institute for the Future and the Association of Professional Futurists with practical tools your team can use immediately.