The Scanning Process

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the process of environmental scanning. It goes in depth by describing different methods used in environmental scanning.

Scanning methods

Groupthink

People are encouraged to record and tag Insights of interest to them over a period of time, e.g., a week, month, or quarter. No restraints are placed on what people record but they are expected to talk to their Insights at a group meeting at the end of the period. The group discusses everyone's recorded Insights and then agrees on new trends, uncertainties, and wild cards that need adding to their Trends base. This process is repeated with the group adding new Insights to their existing Trends, retiring old ones, and adding new ones as the future unfolds. Further research is then carried out on these selected issues as described in the sections on Strategic Thinking and Action Planning.