«Futures» rather than the future

There is hardly a word that is used as matter-of-factly as «future» and yet so rarely defined in precise terms. We talk about it, plan around it and use it in arguments as if it were clear exactly what we are referring to. It was only whilst working on this chapter (Zine «Thinking the Unthinkable – Zukunft braucht neues Denken») that the term suddenly seemed less like a point of reference and more like a shorthand.

At this point, I found myself asking what ideas about the future I myself bring to the table. When you enter a new field of study, you often only realise how many unspoken assumptions (mental biases) you already carry with you. For me, there was one in particular: the assumption that the future is something uniform, a continuous process that logically follows from the present, almost certainly complex, perhaps unpredictable, but fundamentally «one». This notion was quickly put into perspective. Not because the future is completely open-ended or chaotic, but because the singular form is misleading.

«The future» sounds like a narrative that applies to everyone. In reality, however, it often describes only the perspective that dominates the discourse. To discuss questions about tomorrow in an accessible way, we need a different basic understanding – and a method that supports this perspective.

The scenario technique provides a structured framework for systematically analysing possible future developments and presenting them in the form of visions of the future (‘scenarios’). It brings potential developments into focus, thereby opening up decision-making spaces in which opportunities, risks and alternative paths can be considered side by side.

In what follows, my aim is not so much to explain the scenario technique in detail, but rather to share two observations that have particularly stuck with me as a «rookie» in this field.

Rookie Takeaway 1: The Plural of the Future

One of the first insights was that the plural «futures» is not merely a linguistic nuance, but a shift in perspective. The plural makes it clear that the future does not consist of a single linear path, but of many possible developments that are all conceivable at the same time. The focus shifts from «What will happen?» to «Which developments are plausible, and for whom?». This reveals that multiple futures can emerge from the same present. What matters is not so much classifying a possible vision of the future as «likely», but rather understanding which assumptions and perspectives shape its formation.

Rookie Takeaway 2: A Focus on the Present

Envisioning futures begins in the present. In the first step of scenario planning, the focus is not on the future, but rather, radically, on the present: on the forces at work today, on their interconnections, and on the assumptions we share. Viewed in this manner, the present does not appear as a stable state, but as a web of interests, structures and blind spots. Thinking about the future therefore always means learning more about the present. Anyone wishing to develop futures must first unravelling this web:

– What is taken for granted?

– Where might potential points of rupture arise?

– What factors are influencing the present?

– What perspectives are missing from our understanding of the present?

A beginning, not an end

What remains for me from this initial exploration is less a concrete picture of the future than a changed perspective on how we talk about and think about it in the first place. Thinking of futures in the plural and perceiving the present as an interwoven network opens up a different mindset: one that relies less on predictions (forecasts) and more on observation. A mindset that does not view ambiguities as a weakness, but as part of the thought process.

This text appeared in the zine «Thinking the Unthinkable – Zukunft braucht neues Denken».