Acivity 7 - Marco

Activity 7 – Marco

Develop ideas of where you could incorporate the use of scenario planning in your organization

Scenario planning is a strategy for an organization getting prepared for any unexpected change in future. In the concept of scenario planning, it aims to plan an actual action for managing different unexpected situation in future. In this week, I will apply a simple model of scenario planning to my workplace. It is clear and systematic to indicate the steps of organizational changing step by step. 

Step 1: Scoping

It is the first step of change. Scoping means that a question or issue which should be identified for analyzing. Here is an example in my workplace.

Library is facing the age of digitalization. Many people prefer to look for information on the Internet rather than walk in into library. Library is no longer an only warehouse of knowledge. It started to purchase electronic recourses and digitalize its psychical collection in order to embrace this new challenge.

In a certain extent, the case implied that the future problems occurred in the library might be caused by library digitalization. The scope is identified now.

Step 2: Trend analysis

It is going to identify external forces in operation and consider the pressures they play. As the project of library digitalization is huge and complicated, there are many concerns, such as financial problem, technique problem and staff problem etc. They are all considered as a force and pressure to the project. Every problem has its scenario which may be happen in the real and affected the progress of project. Therefore, building scenario is necessary.

Step 3: Building scenario

As for the three problems mentioned in step 2, I am going to build scenario.

In case,

(Financial problem) University cut off 50% of financial support to the project.

(Technique problem) The existing computer format of documents may not be supported after 50 years, such as PDF and DOC files. There may not any software or hardware support to access the materials after 50 years. If so, all digitized collection would not be able to access in future.

(Staff problem) As the age of staffs is different, some may 50 years old or some may 20 years old, the knowledge and vision of staffs may not be kept consisted. Even some old staffs may not keep updated in the new information technology.

Step 4: Generate options

How to deal with this situation? It may be innovations and new services for it.

For financial problem, is it possible to talk with principal about the difficulty if doing cost cutting to the library? Is there a way can comprise with university to make a win win situation? Or find some donation outside the university? Direct talk to the government or other educational organization/

For Technique problem, there is still not an existing format which 100% guarantee it would be used forever. I could assume that computer may be knocked out and no one to use. Therefore, the original copy should be kept. However, it brings another concern which is preservation.

For staff problem, are extra training courses can help this situation? They could help staffs refresh their knowledge of new things. Also, Regular formal and informal gathering can help staffs’ vision keep consisted.

Step 5: Test options

The options could be implemented progressively. At the meanwhile, it is important to evaluate the results to see whether they can help the situation. Also, it is beneficial for moving on the next step, action plan.

Step 6: Action Plan

According the test results and performance, action plan can be planned progressively to against different problem which may be occurred in future. The plan should be complete because it may be used in a long term.

Reference :

http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/tools/scenario-planning/steps