Problems with Uncertainties

DEFINITION

Examples

Strategic planning in the face of rapidly changing technologies and/or volatile market conditions

Family planning

Deciding whether to build a gas cracking plant (which takes a decade to build) in the face of fluctuating foreign oil prices, uncertain access to coal deposits, regulatory policies, and shifting public opinion

Project planning (will all our suppliers come through? will someone get sick? will it rain?)

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Problems with Uncertainties are similar to Puzzles except that some variables have unknown values, and possibly unknowable values. The uncertainty means we have to look at multiple futures rather than a single path. There are external events beyond our control which will have a major impact on whether the problem can be solved, or whether it will stay solved. We have to live with the ambiguity, and stay involved with an emerging solution that may require midcourse corrections.

The level of uncertainty is critical. In some situations, we can list out the possible futures ("either a Democrat or Republican will win the election"), whereas in other cases we can only illustrate the innumerable possible futures ("the future of e-business might look like ..."). In more severe uncertainties, it is impossible to even list the possibilities. Business people moving into the former Soviet Union shortly after the collapse had no way of even imagining the range of possibilities.

CHALLENGES

Crafting useful scenarios is an art, even if planning for them is a science.

The first challenge is determining nature or level of uncertainty. In some situations, it is possible to craft exhaustive scenarios; in others, scenarios are merely illustrative. In any case, the amorphous unknown has to be translated into scenarios around which people can focus their energy.

Unlike Puzzles, this means Problems with Uncertainties cannot simply be developed and then handed over. They require an ongoing engagement with the situation to make sure the right scenario is being activated. The need to remain involved, and to live with unresolvable uncertainty, is one of the more frustrating features of this problem type. Sometimes executives will tire of the openness and push for a "single path" on which the organization can focus its limited resources.

Problems with Uncertainties are missed most often because we simply do not want to admit to the ambiguities in our future. We prefer to make our "best guess" and then pretend the world will follow only one path. Failures are attributed to poor implementation rather than taken as indications of another scenario for which there is no plan in place.

OUTCOMES

We have a plan for the most likely scenarios, and outlines for the less likely but significant scenarios. After that we just have hunches.

The ideal outcome is the definition of alternative but relevant futures which are rich enough that solutions can be imagined within each possibility. There is a plan for tracking the unfolding of circumstances and for making adjustments in the solution being implemented. The problem solvers agree to meet over time to track the evolution of different scenarios and make adjustments in their solution(s).