Purposes of Foresight

What if the world around us evolves contrary to our expectations and becomes more unpredictable? How can we respond flexibly when our environment becomes increasingly volatile, ambiguous, and complex? How can we prepare for such shifts and become more anticipatory in these circumstances?

We have experienced – for instance, with the COVID-19 pandemic – that in such situations, conventional approaches to strategy, policy, and decision-making are not always robust enough and are designed for easier times. To deal with the increasing uncertainties that the university is now facing at many levels, TU Delft decided to develop and use more agile and adaptive approaches to leadership and strategy.

Foresight uses the collective thinking skills within the organization systematically to imagine possible futures and their challenges or to stress-test existing strategies. By considering alternative futures beforehand, we enrich our decision-making processes and prepare ourselves more effectively for potential alternative outcomes.

By applying a consistent outside-in approach, foresight widens the horizons of strategy and policy thinking. It serves as a counterweight to organizational dynamics that tend to emphasize the here and now. Foresight is considered complementary to the usual linear way of developing strategy and policy, focusing on strengthening anticipatory capabilities at many levels of the institution.