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This episode of the Design Thinking 101 podcast is 5.5 Things Every Designer Should Know About: Strategic Foresight. Our guest today is Bart Édes. Bart is a professor at McGill University in International Development.

Listen to learn about:

• Future thinking and strategic foresight
• The benefits of using of foresight
•  How to start using foresight in your organization
• Teaming up with a futurist
• Three skills decision makers need to prepare for the future
• The Futures Wheel 

Our Guest

Bart Édes is a policy analyst, commentator, and author of Learning From Tomorrow: Using Strategic Foresight to Prepare for the Next Big Disruption. He focuses on Asian economic cooperation and integration, sustainable development, international trade, trends reshaping the world, and futures thinking. Édes contributes to the work of the OECD Development Assistance Committee's Friends of Foresight Community and Task Force on Foresight for Sustainable Development Finance. Based in Montréal, Édes is a Professor of Practice at McGill University's Institute for the Study of International Development.

Show Highlights

[01:09] Bart gives a quick introduction to himself.

[02:59] The short definition of strategic foresight.

[03:50] What does it mean to have ideas about the future?

[04:00] Foresight is multidisciplinary.

[04:35] There’s been a surge of interest in foresight since the beginning of the pandemic.

[05:12] What’s involved in strategic foresight?

[06:34] Foresight is not prediction.

[06:58] An exercise in foresight yields scenarios.

[07:10] Foresight scenarios are not the same as forecasting.

[07:57] Looking at emerging drivers of change.

[08:56] The 5.5 things you need to know about strategic foresight.

[09:23] Why organizations should use foresight.

[10:09] Bart talks about foresight work done by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2010.

[10:42] Why foresight is becoming more popular now.

[12:54] The tendency to focus on the immediate as opposed to the future.

[14:29] How to start using foresight in your organization.

[14:42] Scanning for weak signals.

[15:40] Some trends and new innovations on the rise because of the pandemic.

[19:17] How to use weak signals.

[21:42] Bart talks about best practices for partnering with a futurist, and where to find free resources on using foresight.

[24:11] Bart talks a little about his book, Learning from Tomorrow.

[26:08] The Global Trends Report put out by the US National Intelligence Council.

[28:04] Three skills Bart wishes today’s decision-makers had.

[28:38] Learning from past experience.

[29:14] Creating a learning culture.

[30:26] Becoming future-oriented.

[32:48] How to use the Futures Wheel.

Links

Bart on LinkedIn

Bart on CSIS

Bart on Medium

Learning from Tomorrow with

Bart W. Édes On Strategic Foresight & Reshaping Asia & the World

Global Trends Report

The Futures Wheel 

Book Recommendations

Learning from Tomorrow: Using Strategic Foresight to Prepare for the Next Big Disruption, by Bart Édes

Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like 

Adding System Awareness to System Design to Your Innovation Stack with Julie Guinn — DT101 E43

A Short Introduction to Design Thinking with Dawan Stanford — DT101 E32

Teaching Yourself Design Thinking + Innovating in Government with Amy J. Wilson — DT101 E19