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Science Fiction Prototyping

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Most organizations have trouble ignoring what they know about the present in order to imagine better futures. This includes the development of products, services, and other experiences as well as business models, stakeholder relationships, and other strategic issues. It’s difficult to look past what you’re actively working toward to consider if there are other, better, opportunities. And, strategy, is all about identifying better opportunities. All of the tools in this website are, essentially, about identifying opportunities. 

I’ve found that Science Fiction is one of the few ways to move managers, developers, and leaders past their assumptions so that they can see these better opportunities more clearly. It seems frivolous but organizations from startups to large multinationals routinely use this technique because it results in options that aren’t uncovered otherwise.

Brian David Johnson, author of the book, Science Fiction Prototyping, is one of the few people who can legitimately describe themselves as a futurist. He’s a skilled practitioner of strategic foresight with experience working for companies, industry groups, governments, universities—even the military. I’ve run several workshops of this type, for corporations, schools, and at conferences, and it’s usually a revelation for attendees to finish the process with outcomes and specs that are realistically buildable yet push way past what they believed possible before the process. This tool helps push past incremental visions of products and services.