The four tools you need to build a time machine
Using signals, scenarios, artifacts, and simulations to construct plausible futures.
If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that we are living in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. And this is precisely why we need more time travelers, folks who can help us navigate the biggest problems of our day by looking at the road ahead.
We’re surrounded by visions of the future, in literature, TV, film, and even music videos. Most of these are simply for entertainment purposes, but things like Black Mirror have shown how a plausible vision of the future can spark important reflection and debate around topics such as privacy. The viewer is left to wonder, is this a world I would want to inhabit?
It’s the role of a futurist to make abstract ideas about the future concrete. To allow other people to step into a “time machine” and experience that future today.
Constructing plausible futures is part art and part science. The good news is anyone can learn to do it. Below I’ve outlined the four tools you’ll need on your toolbelt. Let’s get building!
Building your time machine
Foresight professionals play with the tension between the trends of today that drive change and the weight of history that slows change, and then add in a third dimension, which is a vision of the future that pulls those other two elements into a new plausible future.
The most compelling futures are the ones that balance the past, present and future.
So let’s say we want to think about a world in which the average person lives to be over 100. What might that world look like? To answer this question and build your time machine you’ll need these four tools: the signal, scenario, artifact, and simulation.
- Signals are signs of change. As the author William Gibson says, “The future is already here — It’s just not very evenly distributed.” So what evidence can you find today that people are living longer? You can then start to piece together these signals to ground your future and make it more plausible.
- Scenarios are where you start to build a world and think about the consequences of change. So what ripple effects could people living longer have? Maybe the retirement age shifts to 80 and people go to college when they’re in their 30s instead of 20s. One tool you can use to help structure your scenarios is Systems Mythology, which offers different archetypes for futures thinking.
- Artifacts are created after you’ve collected signals and drafted scenarios in order to make specific details from the scenarios more concrete. So what do the desk chairs look like for an older workforce? What does the menu at the dining hall look like if students are older with more refined tastes? These may seem like trivial details, but artifacts can be a critical element of worldbuilding. Concrete details help immerse people in the future you’re creating.
- The last step would be to construct some form of Simulation that would allow someone to “walk around” in that future. So what would it be like to visit that office or dorm room of the future? How might you create a simulated experience using all 5 senses? Something that really transports people to that future. To learn more about this foresight tool, check out the free course Simulation Skills: This is Your Brain on the Future by Institute for the Future on Coursera.
As a foresight practitioner your goal is to make the future you’re thinking about as tangible as possible for the other person so that they feel like they are in that other world and can decide whether it is a preferable future or not for them. It’s not about being right or wrong.
As Alvin Toffler says, “In dealing with the future, it is far more important to be imaginative than to be right.”
What futures will you explore in your time machine?
