Remember the Future
Define a vision of success for your initiative
The goal is to define a vision of success for your initiative and milestones that will help you achieve that vision.
The Remember the Future method can help you to
- navigate political landscapes by creating an aligned vision of the future within the team
- visualize a future business scenario, where a challenge has been successfully solved by the team
- drive the ideation of needed steps and activities to get to the vision
GOAL
Define a vision of success and milestones for your initiative
PARTICIPANTS
Designers, Business Leads, Customer
TIME NEEDED
ca. 1 hour
PHASE
Explore
Before You Start
- Involve Your Key Stakeholders
- Identify who you need to collaborate and coordinate with as you explore and define use cases and the architecture of your targeted solution, using Stakeholder Map and Stakeholder Matrix methods:
Materials You Will Need
Resources for Download
Download All ResourcesTemplates for Virtual Collaboration
Steps
The Remember the Future method includes several steps. We recommend completing them in one session.
Brainstorm the Positive Outcomes for Your Future Scenario
Lay out a future scenario with a silent brainstorm prompt:
“It is five years later from now and _____________.”
Write down all the positive outcomes you can imagine. Capture the relevant points on individual sticky notes.
Afterwards share the notes within the group.
Cluster your notes. Depending on what your initiative is about, you can cluster the notes by topic or by any relationship you see fit. Give each cluster a header. You can change the clusters and headers at any time during the process of clustering. However, not all notes have to be in clusters, it’s ok to still have singular notes after clustering.
You can do the activity with a shorter time frame (at the end of the year) as well as with a longer one (in 5 years)
Develop the Vision
Vote on the clusters from the previous step. Formulate an inspiring vision statement stating the team’s vision, represented by the cluster with the most votes.
Try to formulate the vision statement as your future achievement and the impact of that achievement. A good vision is not that easy to achieve – that’s why it is placed completely in the future. The vision statement should give the direction your initiative is going to follow.
Brainstorm Possible Achievements
Conduct a silent brainstorming (or “brainwriting”) with a focus on actions and decisions that will take you to the desired future: “What have you done to achieve this?”
Define the Achievements on the Way to Your Vision
Share your possible achievements with the group and cluster them. After clustering, vote for the 4 most relevant clusters that will help the team achieve the vision. Bring the top 4 clusters in a chronological sequence and add a year of achievement (or month, if the vision is for the nearer future) for each of them.
See Completed Example
Define Your Next Steps
In your team, discuss and define the next steps you will take in order to accomplish your achievements and your vision.
You’re Done!
Whatever your initiative is that you defined this vision for, you can always refer to the result of the Remember the Future exercise when discussing your achievements, or discussing the vision itself.
Follow the next methods in the Recommended Path to continue setting up your innovation project.