Scenario planning is a way for organizations, countries, or companies to develop future plans with various endings or outcomes. The endings are based on current and future events. Generally, the result from this planning is a group of potential situations such as the best case, the worst case, and the middle of the road possibility.

Scenario planning is useful for legal professionals because it involves attorneys in planning the future of the legal profession. It can also be useful to law firms and other companies that want to develop strategic long-term plans.

Scenario Planning by Richard Bawden
IDEA-Innovators of Digital Economy Alternatives
The Millennium Project
The College of Marin

Planning scenarios is important because it helps to develop future plans within an organization, company, or country. It also helps to think of possible variations of what could happen in a certain situation because it helps us prepare for the future.

Plausible Futures Newsletter
Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies
The Legal Futurist

Writing scenarios is like writing a script to a play with various possible endings. The difference is that when you write a scenario, you address a certain issue or topic. An example might be: How will technology change how law is practiced? You can also ask much narrower questions so that you get a more detailed response.

Australian Centre for Innovation and International Competitiveness
How to Build Scenarios

To get started on brainstorming and writing scenarios it is useful to look at some samples. The samples below give you an idea of what a scenario looks like and how it is created.

IDEA-Innovators of Digital Economy Alternatives
"Two Scenarios for 21st Century Organizations: Shifting Networks of Small Firms or All-Encompassing 'Virtual Countries'?"
Kenya at the Crossroads
Storying Corporate Futures: The Shell Scenarios
"Choosing the Future of the Bar"