How to popularize futures thinking? Designing a training concept to support people’s sense of agency toward the future

Abstract

As we move forward into the 21st century, we face a cocktail of challenges: growing polarization, decreasing trust in institutions and the pressing ecological crisis all underlie the urgent need for profound, systemic, and long-term societal transformations. These changes require capacities, both on the individual and theorganizational and national levels, to managethe complexities of the present, but also the will and skills to shape the future. This thesis proposes that futures thinking is one element in those capacities.

The purpose of this thesis was to find ways to encourage people to shape the future. Therefore, this thesis sought to understand how futures thinking could be popularized to support this purpose. The objective of this thesis project wasto design an open-access training concept to build people’s future-oriented mindsets and societal-influencing skills.

The theoretical framework for this thesis draws on transformation, futures thinking and participatory futures. As a research-oriented development, the thesis borrows and mixes several qualitative approaches and methods to achieve its objective. The design process benefited from the principles of transformation design and followed the double diamond model. The process included the phases of discover, define, develop, and deliver. Desk research, interviewing and workshops were used to gather and analyze data and create insights, and vast prototyping and testing were utilized to deliver the outcome. Collaboration between disciplines and employing participatory design techniques were important features in the design process. An external developer team of 17 people from different fields of expertise participated in four co-design workshops.

The designed training concept “Futures Frequency” is an open-access, 3h workshop method that combines future-oriented thinking with change-making and stimulates the participants to think about a future worth imagining and striving for. The method includes an introduction to futures thinking and three phases in which future assumptions are challenged, preferred futures imagined, and futures thinking linked with action. The method is transferable to different contexts with different kinds of target groups. All the materials needed to organize and facilitate a Futures Frequency workshop are published online.