Scenario Development
Why think about the future?
The future is not set in stone and there are many ways it could play out. There is value in taking the time to discuss what we think might happen in the future. By doing this, we will realize that each of us carries different assumptions — yet, none of us know exactly what will happen.
Amidst this uncertainty, we have the opportunity to influence, design and create the future we want, and the future that aging adults want, for how and where to live, heal and age. Building housing is a long term commitment, thus it’s important to try to imagine the world a decade or even more into the future to ensure we are pursuing any opportunity with intention and paying close attention to changing trends and circumstances rather than using today’s reality to plan for future decades.
To do this, we use scenarios. Scenario development is a structured process for deepening our understanding of how the future might unfold so we can more deliberately design the futures we prefer. Shell Oil is a pioneer in using future scenarios for business planning by imaging a world 50-100 years in the future where fossil fuels are no longer the primary source of energy. While we may not be looking that far into the future, housing projects also have a long-term planning horizon and building a shared view of the future can inform an organization’s view on how best to create the most desirable outcome.
Why craft scenarios for the future of housing + care + aging?
To develop alternative scenarios of the future of housing and care for older adults in Canada, we used a standard strategic foresight methodology. To do this, we convened the Building with Mission Steering Committee over the course of three workshops to bring together the expertise of healthcare delivery providers, affordable housing developers, mission-driven organizations and human-centred design methodologists.
First, we spent time reviewing sector trends and drivers of change in the space at the intersection of housing + health(care) + aging. Second, we prioritized the emergent forces of change to identify those that were most critical to addressing unmet needs in affordable housing and care for seniors … while also being the most uncertain. Third, we explored what the future could look like if the most critical and most uncertain drivers of change played out in one direction or in another over the next 10+ years. The result of this process yielded a set of four alternative scenarios for the future of housing and care for older adults in Canada.
Workshop One: Future Trends & Drivers of Change
Watch a short video about signals and trends.
The first workshop set the stage and established a framework for the scenario development process. We introduced and explored key emerging trends and drivers of change that were identified through secondary research, subject matter knowledge and a futures survey. The survey was distributed broadly to people in the Building with Mission network and received over 30 detailed responses from organizations.
Workshop Two: Critical Uncertainties
Watch a short video about critical uncertainties.
In workshop two, we prioritized the drivers of change that we identified in the first workshop and based on two criteria:
Importance: Which trends matter most to the problem/opportunity the Building With Mission project is addressing: “How might mission-driven healthcare delivery organizations expand the range and supply of affordable housing for aging Canadians?”
Uncertainty: Which trends carry the most uncertainty about how they might evolve? The reasons for uncertainty are usually based on uncertainty in the external/macro-environment such as consumer beliefs, government policies, or plays made by other actors in this space.
Trends that emerged as both highly important and highly uncertain were termed “critical uncertainties”.
Workshop Three: Alternative Future Scenarios
Watch a short video about scenarios.
Scenarios provide a useful and accessible tool to help us think about how the future may unfold in a structured and comprehensive way. In particular, when multiple different stakeholders are impacted by (and can influence) a given future, scenarios are a powerful way to initiate dialogue and build alignment on how we prepare for the future.
In the final workshop, we built on the content generated in the previous two workshops to develop four scenarios of how the future may unfold in the housing + care + aging space in Canada. We did this by extrapolating how the most critical and uncertain trends and drivers could play out over the next 10+ years.
We expect the four scenarios we developed will be helpful for mission-driven healthcare delivery organizations as they contemplate expanding their mission into housing.
How to use the scenarios and this guide
The four scenarios developed by the Building with Mission team describe what the Canadian landscape could look like at the intersection of housing + care + aging in 10 to 20 years.
This serves as a great starting point for rich, intentional and comprehensive dialogue and alignment amongst organizational leaders and community stakeholders.
Using the scenarios, healthcare delivery organizations can describe and navigate vastly different environments within which they might be planning a housing development. The Building with Mission team has a preference for some of these futures over others. For example, we are concerned about a future that over-emphasis institutional long-term care as the solution to meet the needs of all older adults and believe that there is a need for a broader range of viable housing and care alternatives. Your organization may feel the same way. It may be helpful to reflect on these scenarios and ask some important questions:
Given your current work and the role your organization is currently playing in the housing and care sector, which future scenario are you a part of making a reality?
On which future scenario does your organization focus its energy? Is that where you want to play? Is that the future you desire?
Reflect on the broader community you work in, towards which future is it most likely heading?
Reflect on your organization and its five-year strategic plan, which future are you planning for?
We hope that organizations will review the findings of each stage of this process, tweak those findings as they see fit for their local context and then use the scenarios developed to discuss their strategic implications.
Suggested Next Steps
Share, discuss, review and pressure test these scenarios
This document demonstrates a process of expansive thinking followed by processes of guided prioritization in order to create distinct futures for housing + care + aging in Canada. The four distinct future scenarios can be used in myriad ways by healthcare delivery organizations that are considering entering the housing market.
Share the approach and scenarios with your colleagues and community partners. Some suggested use cases to support your journey:
Use the scenarios as a starting point to think critically, creatively - and expansively - about your organization’s response to the need for new housing and care models for older adults in your community.
Identify if one of the scenarios seems to be more in line with what you are experiencing or expecting in your own context.
Pressure test the assumptions we have made. Try tweaking one or more scenarios based on your local context.
Focus on strategic implications and themes
After reviewing and discussing with internal and external stakeholders, you can next explore strategic implications for your organization. Work through each of the scenarios and draw out tangible implications for your intentions in this space. What strategies fall out of those implications? You may find new opportunities you hadn’t thought of before; or you may identify ways to shift the direction of your current line of thinking to achieve a more desirable future.
Tools to help you
We’ve created a worksheet to support this process. The worksheet is structured as a range of prompts and questions. We recommend you organize a 90 min - 2 hour workshop to process the implications of the scenarios. Gather a group of citizens, organizational leaders, subject matter experts and community stakeholders and dive into this conversation together using the worksheet provided.
If you have a small group you can go through the worksheet once and discuss all four scenarios. With a bigger group, you can split participants into four subgroups and have them each complete the worksheet for one specific scenario, then reflect on your work as a whole group.
Once you have completed the worksheet for each scenario, ask the group how you might prioritize which strategic implications and themes are important to your work now, and in the future.
Download the strategic implications worksheet here.
From foresight to planning
A well-run workshop will help your team and stakeholders see the value of spending some time exploring the future. This, in turn, will help bridge and reframe how you collectively understand the current state of housing and care for seniors, and the wide range of possibilities for your organization and community to change the current state. You can pose questions to the group like
Given your current work and the role your organization is currently playing in the housing/health sector, which future scenario are you a part of making a reality?
Which future is most and least risky for your organization?
Reflecting on the broader community in which you work, towards which future is it most likely heading?
Reflecting on your organization and its five-year strategic plan, which future are you planning for?
On which future scenario does your organization focus its energy? Is that where you want to play? Is that the future you desire?
Now that you have a shared reality and vision for the future, how can your organization solidify its direction and mission? What decisions can be made, and actions taken now?
We hope this approach inspires action and confidence to move forward with speed and clarity in this important work.
