Linking Foresight to Decision Making

by F. Stevens Redburn and Jonathan D. Breul

 How can strategic foresight be effectively linked to decision making in the federal executive branch?

Strategic foresight can inform national policy in the face of profound uncertainty about what lies ahead.  It recognizes the requirement to look beyond the horizon and imagine a range of possible futures, so that policy makers can prepare for the unexpected and even the unlikely.  Strategic foresight efforts enhance the knowledge base for thinking about and designing policies and can help identify current policy gaps.  However, foresight can only be useful if it is connected to policy making.  How to make these connections is our focus here.

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What Is Strategic Foresight?

By John Kamensky

Does it make any sense for the government to think long term?  We’ve done it before – think about the interstate highway system, the race to the Moon, or the evolution of the Internet.

Strategic foresight is not futuristic forecasting, nor is it the sole purview of Popular Science magazine, the World Future Society, or the Jetson Family.  It is about having the imagination to be prepared for what may come, regardless of which scenario occurs – it’s a mindset, not a process.

Bringing Strategic Foresight to the Fore

By John Kamensky

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What is NAPA’s Strategic Foresight Panel planning to do? This isn’t the first time NAPA has addressed the topic of creating a strategic foresight capacity for the federal government. But this time there is a better plan!

In preparation for the 2008 presidential transition, the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) published an issue paper, Governing with Foresight: Institutional Changes to Enhance Fact-Based Decision-Making in the Executive Office of the President. That paper noted that: “Some careful observers have found little if any institutional capacity to focus on cross-cutting outcomes and that there is an increasing lack of national consensus on priorities and future directions.” It outlined several potential approaches the incoming president might take, which included:

Omega and Alpha

By Ed DeSeve

As we enter the new year, we realize that next year at this time we will – hopefully – have a new president-elect. He or she will be hard upon the process of transition and the hopes of a nation will be with them – at least those who voted for them.

The process of transition brings with it a boom in the binder industry. Every agency, every think tank, and many non-governmental organizations will trot out binders full of advice for the new Administration. At the Academy, we started this spring to prepare for the “Binder Wars” and will certainly join the fray although primarily electronically. 

About This Blog

The National Academy of Public Administration is bringing to the federal community its expertise on what it takes to execute a smooth and flawless presidential transition. This site features in depth commentaries from former high level White House and agency officials, government practitioners, and some of the leading experts in academia on these complex subjects.