A recent article in MIT Sloan Management Review, “Using Scenario Planning to Reshape Strategy,” indicated a resurgence of scenario planning that initially gained recognition during the 1960s and ’70s. Royal Dutch/Shell has been the “poster child” of success ever since it used scenario planning to address the instability and uncertainty during the 1973 oil crisis.

I was fortunate to be part of the Scenario Planning group at AT&T Bell Laboratories during the late ’90s, and during that time I was trained by Peter Schwartz, a world-renowned futurist that popularized scenario planning.

Why the resurgence?

With globalization and new technologies, the external environment in many industries is changing.

For example, globalization has been a double-edged sword for most firms. At the highest level, consider two results of globalization: growth opportunities in new territories, and at the same time, competition entering your existing market.

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