Implementing organisational foresight: a case study in learning from the future

Swinburne University of Technology established an internal foresight unit in 1999, with a brief to integrate foresight into existing University planning processes. At the same time, the Australian Foresight Institute, an academic unit with a focus on teaching, research and consultancy was established. The existence of both scholarly and practical foresight work in a single institution provides a unique environment in which the University can begin to learn from the future to strengthen its existing strategy development and strategic planning processes. Implementing foresight at Swinburne is about three years old. This paper is a case study of that implementation to date. It will discuss the intellectual framework being used to underpin foresight implementation, how we have gone about integrating scenario planning into the University since July 2001, and outcomes so far. Particular attention is paid to how foresight is being implemented in an organisational setting with entrenched planning processes and a sometimes unhealthy degree of scepticism, and how the outputs from scenario planning will be used to inform strategy development and decision making.