TECHNOLOGY FORESIGHT SUMMIT - Unido

Part one. Technology Foresight Panels 17
Foresigh Academy;
Foresight Bridge.
Cooperation in the wider European neighbourhood is also planned.
A closely related question is the breadth and depth of participation in
foresight programmes. Here we are faced with a trade-off: the broader the
geographic scope of a programme is, the more difficult and costly is to maintain
its participatory character. When participants are coming from a large,
and diverse area, or indeed, from different countries—in terms of level of
development, norms, ways of thinking, values, behavioural routines—it is not
only a question of travel time and costs to organize and facilitate meaningful
workshops. In this case potential communication problems should be taken
into account carefully when preparing these meetings: possible gaps should
be identified in advance, and efforts have to be made to bridge them as well
as to remove other obstacles to fruitful discussions.
When developing scenarios for a company the following is recommended:
Developing scenarios for a company is a learning process, it should be
organized and executed as such
The scenario work should closely fit into the normal planning process
in order to involve all relevant hierarchical levels of a company
The working team should not only consist of people in the planning
department but also include persons from marketing, finance, research
and—above all—top management