Up::[[Методы работы с будущим ⚪️]] [Futures Thinking & Design Thinking](https://futurehumanbydesign.com/2019/09/futures-thinking-and-design-thinking/) Before we go too far, let’s get some clarity on the term ‘Futures Thinking’. Futures Thinking has a few different names that _can_ mean the same thing: Anticipatory Systems, Strategic Foresight, Futures, Futures Studies, Futures Literacy and more. For consistency, my research and this site I (nearly always) use ‘Futures Thinking’. ![[Pasted image 20240313112435.png]] ## **Futures Thinking** Wendy L. Schultz (2015) divides Futures history into 5 waves of development in her paper ‘A Brief History of Futures’, which I have referenced, paraphrased, quoted and summarised below.  ### The 1st wave in the field of Futures starts with the Oral storytelling tradition from shamans and mystics. ### The 2nd wave is the early written age. Historical patterns and cycles are observed. -Understanding that these patterns in the past can be used to determine larger futures, ‘with scholars such as Sīmǎ Qiān (around second century BCE) and Ibn Khaldun (fourteenth century)’. Visionaries and images like the work of Nostradamus (16th century). ‘Who sketched metaphorical vignettes forecasting outcomes stretching forward centuries into the future’ (Schultz 2015). - In this same period, Thomas More with his frame narrative Utopia (1516) introduced the concept of an ideal place and coined the term ‘utopia’ (which means ‘nowhere’) (Bell 1996, Singh 2019).  ### The 3rd wave: Enlightenment and Extraction. Progress as a preferred future. The idea of progress through science is born. Competing images and narratives of possible futures. Shultz refers to the work of science fiction writer H. G. Wells, ‘The Time Machine’. ### The 4th wave: Systems and Cybernetics. Systems sciences and systems thinking, along with ecology, evolved side by side with futures studies in the early twentieth century. Both provided essential theories and insights into Futures Studies (Schultz 2015). World War II, deployment, systems operations, and forecasting. The totality of war during the Second World War accelerated forecasting methods development. As all countries needed grand planning and forecasting on scales previously unimaginable; millions of people and the resources to support them. The learnings from this period would pave the way for Futures for the next few decades. By the end of the World War II Futures methods were being formalised. Its use was being applied to military and intelligence requirements in the US. Europeans were using Futures to re-envision its society and how to move forward after much of its infrastructure was destroyed from the War (Shultz, 2015), and many colonial countries were declaring their independence (Schultz 2015, Singh 2019). During the 1970s Shell Oil created a global reputation for ‘creative thinking and strategic possibilities via stories depicting alternate futures’ (Schultz 2015) which led the way for other corporations to implement these ‘new’ methods of innovation creation. In 1970 Alvin Toffler writes Future Shock and concern for the future became mainstream (Bell 1996, Singh 2019). Institutionalising Futures: The World Future Society (WFS) was founded in Washington, D.C., in 1966. And the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF)  was founded in Paris, France, on May 26, 1973. Formally founded in 2002, ‘[t]he youngest international professional futures organisation, the Association of Professional Futurists (APF), emerged […] in Seattle in April 2001 that brought together alumni from various futures studies graduate programs’ (Schultz 2015).  ### The 5th wave: Schultz concludes with Futures today is at the beginning of the 5th wave, as we see Futures Theory meld with other disciplines (like design) and globalise beyond the Westernised framing of the future as it spreads across institutions the world over, helped with immersive programmable graphic technology, and a positive outlook for a more inclusive futures world.  The descriptions from the 1st to the 5th wave above have been summarised heavily from Schultz’s work (Schultz 2015) and I recommend reading it in full and utilising the reference section Schultz provides in that work for more in-depth understanding of the history of Futures Theory. But from the above summary it is clear that thinking of futures scenarios is deeply ingrained in our human psyche and our cultures, and the formalisation of it has been in process since the end of World War II. ## Design Thinking Design Thinking comparatively is relatively young having started its way into design forums in the 1970s (Kimbell 2011). It was however, first written about by John E. Arnold in 1959 in his book Creative Engineering. Design Thinking’s beginning partially lies in the innovation techniques that had been developing during the 1950s (Wikipedia 2019). People that practice Design Thinking use a human-centred problem solving process. Moving from generating insights about end users, to idea generation and testing, to implementation (Kimbell 2011). Kimbell continues ‘…Their visual artefacts and prototypes help multidisciplinary teams work together. They ask ‘what if?’ questions to imagine future scenarios rather than accepting the way things are done now.’  Kimbell’s break down of the human centred design (HCD) process starts to reveal some similarities between Futures Thinking and Design Thinking.  The Futures cone in the image below could be considered as the first diamond of the Design Council’s, Design Thinking Double Diamond process. So at the conclusion of a Futures process, Artefact Generation could commence from the Synthesis stage of the Design Thinking process to generate Speculative Design work, or to create a specific design solution for the problem at hand. ‘In reality, futures thinking helps [designers] to “empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test” in a much more holistic, emergent and transformational way than is possible without it.’ (Spencer 2016)  ![[Futures Thinking and Design Thinking processes 20240313113409.png]] Diagram: [Steven Santer](http://santer.com.au/) (author). Comparison of time-scales and activities between Futures Thinking and Design Thinking processes. The design process ultimately leads us to create a final solution that is taken to market. The goals are products, services, and experiences for today’s world (Roumiantseva 2016). Futures process invites inspiration and exploration of opportunities in the future that may or may not happen. It builds an anticipatory attitude to better handle uncertainty (Roumiantseva 2016). Futures is a kind of design that is concerned with asking ‘what-if?’ (Kozubaev 2018). # References - https://santer.com.au/ - [Design Jobs of 2050: A Speculative Design and Fiction Project](https://santer.com.au/design-jobs-of-2050-a-speculative-design-and-fiction-project/) - ## [How professionals create value with other people](https://santer.com.au/how-professionals-create-value-with-other-people/) -