Exploratory Scenario Planning

As uncertainty about the future grows, communities face new challenges—including rapid urban development, mass migration, pandemics, technological advancement, and climate change—at an unprecedented pace and scale. Exploratory scenario planning (XSP) is a method for cities and regions to create actionable plans for sustainable, resilient adaptation to social, technological, economic, environmental, and political forces beyond their control. It enables them to consider a range of possible futures (“scenarios”) and incorporate them into upcoming strategies, resulting in robust plans that contend with forces as diverse as water and land use, transportation management, regional growth, systemic racial injustice, and climate change.

This four-page policy briefs distills the more expansive report, How to Use Exploratory Scenario Planning (XSP): Navigating an Uncertain Future, by Jeremy Stapleton.