Ideas and Tools to Govern Uncertainty

To handle increasingly uncertain situations, we need to learn how to anticipate what is coming. Futures Studies have developed robust frameworks for working with possible futures, including the development of scenarios and visions able to guide decisions in the present. Measuring risks and understanding uncertainties, and distinguishing what is only complicated from what is actually complex; these are part and parcel of working with the future.

This book presents the phases of a future exercise, and for each phase explains the tools and methods to be used. Military tactics, legacy systems, future laboratories in the classroom, and resilient strategies are fi elds where a new profession, that of the futurist, shows its strength. To become a futurist, however, we need to be able to leave the ordinary and see new opportunities for action.

Pages: 168

Trade Paper: ISBN 9788885486904; $ 34,95

Epub/Moby pocket: ISBN 9788885486911; $ 24,95

Author: 

Roberto Poli teaches Social Foresight and Epistemology of Social Sciences at the University of Trento, where since 2013 he has held the fi rst UNESCO Chair in Anticipating Systems. At the same university, in 2014 he launched the fi rst Italian master’s degree in Social Foresight. Poli is president of AFI-Associazione dei Futuristi Italiani, and -skopìa Anticipation Services. He is fellow of WAAS-World Academy of Arts and Science, and STIAS-Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study.