Foresight process

General model of four successive stages: 1. understanding of the context, 2. strategic visualization, 3. design of futures and 4. construction of the future. For the development of this foresight process various tools could be applied answering the following series of questions:

Stage	Questions to be answered
1. Understanding the Context	What is the general state of the matter? What is the current situation or problem to be faced? What are the main elements involved in the object of study? Which are the current trends? How can I articulate them in a systemic way based on their contribution to the system?
2. Strategic Visualization	What is the specific trend, topic or problem that we are addressing? What conditions or characteristics of the environment influence the future outcome of the object of study? What are the key factors for the object of study future? What are the actors involved in the outcome of the key forces? What are your interests? How do they interact? What innovative alternatives could we make to solve the problem?
3. Drawing Futures	What would be the future state of continuing to project current trends? How do we imagine possible future scenarios for the object of study in the face of these alternatives in a given time horizon? What are the main forces that shape the future? How can they combine to give us different states of the future?
4. Tomorrow building	What future do we propose to build? Which of the alternatives do we propose to implement? What should we do to achieve the selected scenario considering the term until the time horizon? What actions should we take?

The general four-stage model represents, in turn, a cycle that, on the timescale, will be nested to another four-stage cycle, and so on. Although the future becomes the present at some point in time, once you are within the cyclical process, it should not stop, accumulating in each cycle more and better experience in the analysis of strategic information, in the search for consensus, in the resolution of conflicts, in the establishment and follow-up of agreements and in planning towards the desired future. Source: Gándara, Guillermo. Foresight methods: manual for the study and construction of the future. First edition: Paidós, 2014. ISBN 9786079377311.