Shutterstock.com

Federal Foresight Community of Interest Turns Five

An intrepid band of analysts from across the federal government is working hard to identify the long-term challenges that should concern today’s decision makers.

Pop quiz: When planning for the future, which federal agency’s strategic plan has the longest timeframe?

Answer: The U.S. Forest Service. The agency looks ahead 100 to 150 years—it takes a long time to grow a forest.

An intrepid band of foresight analysts from across the federal government met recently to continue their regular round of sharing insights and practices. The group quietly celebrated their fifth year of informal gatherings, and the band of volunteers who organize the meetings announced the creation of a community website.

Five years ago, the group began to meet after recognizing a common need to share and create a network of foresight capabilities across government to learn from best practices and to speed results, both formally and informally. Since then, there has been steady, quiet progress.

What Federal Foresight Looks Like  

Community members with  the Environmental Protection Agency—Joseph Greenblott, Thomas O’Farrell, Robert Olson, and Beth Burchard—shared survey findings from a recently published study they co-authored that describes the status of the maturity and institutional arrangements federal agencies have in place to conduct strategic foresight. Some interesting takeaways:

  • “Most of the organizations consulted have only a few people conducting foresight studies, and the most effective foresight organizations tend to be located close to the top but not directly involved in day-to-day decision making.” The authors found greater support for the use of foresight in defense and intelligence agencies. The most prominent of these is probably the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment.  
  • In a scan of different foresight methods used by federal agencies, they found: “The most commonly used foresight technique is horizon scanning, which often serves as the foundation for other foresight exercises, such as implications wheels, scenario planning, and trend analysis.”

The Value of Strategic Foresight

Greenblott and colleagues write that “Strategic foresight is a planning tool to develop the critical thinking, planning, and management competencies for considering the impact of long-term uncertainties on near-term decision making.” They further note that foresight is not about predicting the future so much as it is identifying plausible alternative futures.

In fact, the late leadership guru Robert Greenleaf said it is an ethical issue if leaders fail to “make the effort at an earlier time to foresee today’s events and take the right actions when there was freedom for initiative to act.” After all, foresight is about being able to perceive the significance and nature of events before they have occurred, and having the imagination to be prepared for what may come, regardless of which scenario occurs—it’s a mindset, not a process.

In federal agencies, the use of foresight reframed how agencies approached their strategic planning. The Coast Guard, for example, undertook an increased emphasis on preparing for Arctic missions in 2005 when its foresight efforts suggested that climate changes would lead to the melting of the icecap and new competition for newly-opened water passages. And in the Veterans Affairs Department, foresight efforts are the foundation for building VA’s quadrennial strategic plan, inform the development of strategic objectives, and help identify more than a quarter of the department’s enterprise risks that need to be addressed.

A 2016 white paper by the National Academy of Public Administration endorses the value of strategic foresight and recommends institutionalizing the development and use of foresight in federal decision making by creating capacity at the White House, the cross-agency level, and within each major agency.

Next Steps

The research study by Greenblott and his colleagues concludes that foresight has taken root in government but cautions that it has not yet been institutionalized. The authors note that agencies are in different places along the maturity scale. However, this steady evolution of foresight capacity within agencies fits into a broader context of piecemeal efforts to improve agencies’ decision-making support capabilities. For example, there other capabilities have been added and institutionalized. The Office of Management and Budget advocates the use of enterprise risk management, and Congress has passed legislation strengthening the use of strategic planning, and  the use of data, evidence and evaluation. The key, though, will be to embed it into existing ongoing decision-making processes such as agencies’ annual strategic reviews of progress with the Office of Management and Budget.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.