3 PATTERNING 4 REFOCUSING
3 PATTERNING 4 REFOCUSING
Phase 3 . Patterning - Including new perspectives and forecasting
This third phase is a very exciting one , where the perspective is shifted from understanding the now to what might happen in the future . Drawing further on the identified pivotal points and trends , patterns can be drawn and meaningfully projected in the future . Models that produce algorithmic forecasts can play a helpful role in this phase , but can at the same time never substitute for the need to perform foresighting activity through bringing together different actors ’ reasoning , discussion , and engage in a collaborative exercise of ‘ making sense ’. Often models lack precisely this information that has been identified in phase 2 , and therefore fail to recognize the trends in time for being able to react rapidly and avoid a delayed response . So this phase is also about using the knowledge gained in the first two phases in an open , collaborative and creative process , which maps what is happening and what might happen ‘ if ’. Here , a wide range of actors should be invited in order to step outside of what has been thought before .
Phase 4 . Refocusing - Integrate the new gained knowledge and decide on a potential set of experiments
This phase involves the digestion of the key points resulting from the phases before , thereby deepening awareness and understanding . With this newly-gained and richer perspective , promising experiments can be evaluated according to their potential to live up to societal trends , their leverage effects to influence trends towards a certain direction , their interplay with existing systems and structures , and the extent to which the municipality can engage with them . This filtering of attention to certain experiments and surrounding experiments should then be summarized in a document . The idea is to list those experiments of which the potential has to be tested ( as we will see later , by taking step A of the strategy ’ s second part - ‘ A-B-C of experimenting ’).
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