Role-Playing is when a group is given a scenario to act out what they would do if it was real.

Visioning- This could help NSF develop a vision of the organisation in the future based on if the economy, environment and social and technological environment was to continue.

Another technique we can employ through foresight is the use of relevance trees. This involves starting with a clear goal, which is then traced back through any trends and events on which it depends. This allows the organisation to determine what needs to change or be developed in order for us to achieve the desired outcome. For example, our goal may be to have improved demographics in sports participation, and we would then work through the trends and events that would allow this to happen.

Relevance trees is a technique used to work back from a clear goal and work back to determining what needs to be changed. An example of this within NSF would be to look at a clear goal such as number of volunteers required to make NSF a success and work back to the root of this to work out what has to be done for this to be a possibility. An example of a strategy that could be applied to achieve this would be to educate the population on the importance of sports and culture on the demographics that need it most and hopefully from there NSF will see an increase in the number of volunteers.

Scenario planning - for example impact of changes within the country the impact of government funding cuts to see the need to cut costs, or invest in other revenue generating activities to offset and grow the revenue in the longer term. Making the group stronger with more diverse revenue streams and less reliance on government spending.

Visioning- would help with the change in consumer demand increasing technology how they can capitalise on the changes within the environment to benefit the group as a whole, which could be used in conjunction with opportunity mapping.

This involves developing a desirable future state of the organisation. NFS may visualise a nation where sport participation is high across all age groups/ communities. It may use this vision to align efforts and resources.

Role playing

Role playing involves giving a group a hypothetical situation and asking them to respond to the situation as if it was real. NSF could provide a scenario such as the complete ceasing of government funding, and also simulate minimal funding from the private sector. The group can then think strategically about how to respond .The response to this may be seeking community support, or find new revenue streams. This encourages creative thinking and helps NSF become more responsive to change.

The first stage is to identify high impact, high uncertainty factors in the environment; for example, we may identify an abrupt change in regulations regarding sports in communities that could restrict our ability to operate. For each of these factors, we would then identify possible futures.

The next stage is to cluster together the different factors, in order to identify any various consistent future scenarios. We would then write these scenarios, usually around three, and identify the financial and strategic implications and their associated probabilities. For each of these scenarios, we would assess and identify any possible courses of action for the company. In our situation, this could be finding new sources of finance as our government funding has been cut, and private investment declines.

The final stages are to monitor reality in order to see which scenarios, if any, are unfolding; if scenarios we have planned for, such as new technology disrupting the number of young people participating in sports even further, come to occur, we would have contingency plans to combat this risk. Finally, the scenarios, and our strategic options, are revised or redeployed as necessary.

firstly identify areas of high impact for example volunteer numbers, less demand due to shift in behaviours / demand

then identify the various outcomes.

then cluster them together to identify potential future outcomes.

From here, we would identify possible courses of action and analyse how our new strategy of using technology has impacted our environment and look at both the positives this could bring but also the negatives. We would then monitor this strategy before finally revising to see if we can learn any lessons from this strategy.

Political - funding is being reduced from the government, NSF is heavily reliant on government funding therefore it has a big impact and will cause further uncertainty.

Social - The ageing population of the country is having a detrimental impact on the amount of people participating in sport. If this continues then there will be less and less people interested in engagin in sports.

Technological - Technology based entertainment products are reducing the number of young people participating in sports.

Next we need ot cluster together different factors to indentify various consistent future scenarios, from the examples above one consistent scenario is the lack of younger people playing sports.