Official skill · Strategy
Scenario planning
Builds four scenarios from two critical uncertainties around one decision, tests the decision in each, and ends with signposts, robust moves, and contingent moves. Use it when before a long, hard-to-reverse commitment such as a lease, plant, or new country.
AI skill
Have your AI test a decision against four possible futures
14 days free · No card needed
Works in Claude, ChatGPT, and coding agents. On Team and Business, the official skill in your pod updates itself when we improve it.
When to use it
- Before a long, hard-to-reverse commitment such as a lease, plant, or new country
- The team argues about one forecast and the answer is 'it depends'
- An annual strategy review in a market that could shift
What you give it
- The decision and its time horizon
- Known trends, rules, technology, and customer facts
- The current plan or options
- Who will use the scenarios
What you get
A focal question, forces split into predetermined elements and critical uncertainties, a 2x2 of four named scenarios, the decision tested in each, signposts, and robust and contingent moves.
How it works
- Write the focal question
- List the key factors
- List the driving forces
- Separate predetermined elements from critical uncertainties
- Build four scenarios from two axes
- Test the decision in each scenario
- Choose signposts
- Sort the moves
- End with the decision and next actions
Example
What you give it
We run Harbourline English, an English school for adults in Fukuoka: one site, 16 classrooms, about 700 students, 60% of revenue from individuals and 40% from company contracts (employers paying for staff lessons). Our landlord offers a second site near Hakata station on an eight-year lease, which we must sign or decline within two months. Facts: the city's population of people aged 20 to 39 has been falling for years and our planning assumes it keeps falling [check: city statistics]. Machine translation is improving fast, and we don't know whether that will make people want lessons less or want real conversation practice more. Since 2023, 30% of new individual students choose our online classes; the rest still come in person. Two of our company clients cut their training budgets this year; three others increased theirs. A national rule now requires companies of a certain size to report on staff training [check: exact rule], which our sales lead thinks will keep company budgets up.
What you get back (the start of it)
Scenarios: Should Harbourline sign an eight-year lease for a second site near Hakata station?
Horizon: eight years (the lease term) · Prepared for: Harbourline English · Date: [date]
Focal question
Should we sign the eight-year lease for a second site near Hakata station, decision due within two months?
Key factors and driving forces
| Key factor | Driving forces behind it | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Number of individual students | Fewer people aged 20 to 39 in the city; better machine translation | User; [check: city statistics] |
| In-person vs online demand | Online share of new students (30% since 2023); comfort with online learning | User |
| Company contracts | Training budgets; national training reporting rule | User; [check: exact rule] |
The rest of this output, the full steps and the checks the AI runs before it answers are in your pod once you add the skill.
Use this skill in your AIShare it with your team
Add it to an AI Skill Pod and everyone on the team, contractors included, uses the same version from their own AI. Read the best ways to share AI skills with a team
Changelog
- v1.0.1 · · Example: both predetermined elements (fewer people aged 20 to 39, better machine translation) now appear in all four scenarios, as the skill's own rule requires.
- v1.0.0 · · First release.
Sources
- Scenarios: Uncharted Waters Ahead - Pierre Wack, Harvard Business Review (September 1985) (read 2026-11-04)
- Scenarios: Shooting the Rapids - Pierre Wack, Harvard Business Review (November 1985) (read 2026-11-04)
- The man who saw the future - Art Kleiner, strategy+business (2003) (read 2026-11-04)
- Schwartz's 8-Step Process (scenario planning) - Mind Tools (read 2026-11-04)
- Rethinking the 2x2 scenario method: Grid or frames? - Ramirez and Wilkinson, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 86 (2014) 254-264 (read 2026-11-04)
- The Art of the Long View, Peter Schwartz (Doubleday/Currency, 1991) - Open Library (read 2026-11-04)