The nature and value of futures studies or do futures have a future?

Futures

Volumn 29, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 77-93

  Coyle, Geoff ^a  

^a CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0002412935     PISSN: 00163287     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/s0016-3287(96)00067-5     Document Type: Review

References (31)

1. This paper is a revised version of a keynote address to the annual conference of the Operational Research Society, University of Warwick, September, 1996.
2. The recent fire indicates that even its engineering design was not future-proof, though the damage will be repaired. What, however, would have been the consequences if the tunnel had been able to put the cross-Channel ferries out of business? Fire in Tunnel, Continent isolated, perhaps.
3. The 'forecast' that 500 Concordes would be sold can rank with similar predictions that the whole of the world's computing needs could be handled by four machines and that no more than 500 Polaroid cameras would ever be sold.
4. The five were the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Chinese. The sixth was, of course, the British. Only the Japanese Empire emerged essentially intact from the First World War.
5. I have been unable to track down the reference to Bloch, but Childers' book has recently been reprinted by Penguin Books.
6. A packet of cigarettes is no longer politically correct as an analogy.
7. See Coyle, R. G., Management System Dynamics. John Wiley, 1977, Chapter 10, for a model of a company which is very insensitive to errors in sales forecasts because the company's control mechanisms automatically correct for errors.
8. For other techniques for the study of technological evolution see Jones, H. and Twiss, B. C., Forecasting Technology for Planning Decisions. Macmillan Press, London, 1978. For a more recent technology forecast see Loveridge, D., Georghiou, L. and Nedeva, M. United Kingdom Technology Foresight Programme Delphi Survey. Policy Research in Engineering Science and Technology, University of Manchester, 1995. The Delphi technique is discussed later in this paper.
9. For other techniques for the study of technological evolution see Jones, H. and Twiss, B. C., Forecasting Technology for Planning Decisions. Macmillan Press, London, 1978. For a more recent technology forecast see Loveridge, D., Georghiou, L. and Nedeva, M. United Kingdom Technology Foresight Programme Delphi Survey. Policy Research in Engineering Science and Technology, University of Manchester, 1995. The Delphi technique is discussed later in this paper.
10. For a good modern example, see Kennedy, P. The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. Random House, New York, 1987.
11. Influence Diagrams, the techniques for building them and several other applications, are dealt with in detail in Coyle, R. C., System Dynamics Modelling: A Practical Approach. Chapman and Hall, London, 1996. The book also covers the system dynamics methodology in detail, including the techniques of simulation and optimisation of dynamic models. It is accompanied by a disk with approximately 90 models and 100 influence diagrams.
12. See Coyle, R. G. and Alexander, M. W. D. Two approaches to qualitative analysis of a nation's drugs trade, submitted to System Dynamics Review, 1996. The name Dystopia was chosen because it is the antonym of Utopia, itself a 'futures' exploration of a perfect country.
13. Checkland, P., System Thinking, Systems Practice. John Wiley, London, 1981 and Checkland, P. and Scholes, J. Soft Systems Methodology in Action. John Wiley, 1990.
14. Checkland, P., System Thinking, Systems Practice. John Wiley, London, 1981 and Checkland, P. and Scholes, J. Soft Systems Methodology in Action. John Wiley, 1990.
15. Coyle, R. G. and Clee, C. B. A semi-quantitative approach to threat assessment. Unpublished paper.
16. Sir Terry Burns, now the chief civil servant in the Treasury started his distinguished career as an econometrician working on the London Business School econometric model.
17. 5. Forrester, J. W. World Dynamics, Wright-Allen Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1971 ; and Meadows, D. H. et al, The Limits to Growth, UK Edition by Earth Island Press, London, 1972.
18. 5. Forrester, J. W. World Dynamics, Wright-Allen Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1971 ; and Meadows, D. H. et al, The Limits to Growth, UK Edition by Earth Island Press, London, 1972.
19. These graphs were produced by translating Forrester's original model from the DYNAMO simulation format into COSMIC.
20. 7. The author does not necessarily hold any brief for these models, he is simply summarising some work which took place.
21. The most recent example is Toffler, A. and Toffler, H. War and Anti-war. Little, Brown and Company, UK, 1994. The reference to their work being popular simply means that it has sold well and is not intended to be pejorative.
22. It is fun to observe that Heinlein's Starship Troopers (a good read if ever there was one) describes warriors clad in powered armour able to jump buildings with no more effort than one might climb a step. The Tofflers report in reference 18 that the US Army is starting to speculate about exo-skeletal battlefield armour capable of allowing soldiers to do just that.
23. Macrae, H. The World in 2020. Harper Collins. London, 1994.
24. Friedman, G. and Lebard, M. The Coming War With Japan. St Martins Press, New York, 1991.
25. Loveridge, D. and Nedeva, M. United Kingdom Technology Foresight Programme Delphi Survey. Policy Research in Science and Engineering, University of Manchester, 1995.
26. Rhyne, R., Whole-pattern futures projection using field anomaly relaxation. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 1984, 21, 331-360.
27. The author and his students have found mind mapping to be useful in doing this. See the paper cited in the following note and Buzan, T., The Mind Map Book. BBC Books, London, 1993.
28. Coyle, R. G. and Yong, Y. C. A scenario projection for the South China Sea; Further experience with field anomaly relaxation. Futures, 1996, 28(3), 269-283.
29. Wood, W. and Christakis, A. A methodology for conducting futures-oriented workshops. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 1984, 26, 281-297.
30. Powell, J. and Coyle, R. C. A network-based method for strategic business planning. (Part I), submitted to Journal of the Operational Research Society.
31. It is striking that, in the last few years, the Communist Party was legal in South Africa, but not in Russia .