“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”

Marcel Proust (La Prisonnière)

Since 2012 I have provided consultancy services focussed on helping teams and organisations develop their collective intelligence to support sensemaking and innovation. Through this time I have studied a wide range of subjects and approaches including anthro-complexity & complex adaptive systems, Adult Cognitive Development, Future Studies and Strategic Foresight.

My work in this area has been quite diverse and has involved clients from SMEs and small non-profit organisations through to major international organisations and government departments. My clients have included The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs, Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, The New Zealand Council of Educational Research, and Singularity University. I have also been very fortunate to collaborate with a wide range of high profile organisations including UNESCO, The Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (University of Stellenbosch, RSA), Teach the Future (USA) and Singularity University (USA). 

My work in foresight and strategy generally relates to the areas of Futures Education and Applied Foresight.

Futures Education

My work in Futures Education is diverse and includes engagements with people from the classroom through to the boardroom. I am currently engaged in the development of a futures thinking programme for children aged between 10 and 18 and hold the position of Director of Futures Thinking at Diocesan School for Girls. At the opposite end of the scale I provide workshops and teach on executive programmes focussed on exploring alternative futures and supporting future oriented decisions. This is work I am engaged in through my connections to We Create Futures and Boma.

Applied Foresight

All my work in this space is highly bespoke and draws upon a range of knowledge, skills and collaborative partnerships. I have led and been involved in a wide range of projects that support organisations to think more creatively and critically about future possibilities in order to enhance decision making in the present. Generally this work leads to the development of a strategy that seeks to identify new opportunities to create value within complex and uncertain situations.

My work in foresight adopts a range of theoretical frameworks which can help teams:

  • Uncover hidden assumptions about the future and the present;
  • Reframe the way they see situations they’re working with now, or possibilities they anticipate in the future;
  • Increase their situational awareness so they are more able to sense emergent challenges and opportunities;
  • Explore a wide range of possible consequences from changes we sense in the present or the future; and
  • Develop suites of parallel experiments that seek to identify new possibilities within complex environments.

As well as creating my own tools and methods I am also familiar with a wide range of well documented approaches to applied foresight including:

  • Narrative capture;
  • Environmental scanning for signals of change (including analysis and blindspot identification);
  • Scenario development and exploration (through a wide range of methods);
  • Speculative design;
  • The Cynefin Framework;
  • Three Horizons;
  • Parallel experiment development (safe-to-fail); and
  • Design thinking