Scnning. Strategic early warning system. The aim of a Strategic Early Warning System (SEWS) is to assist organizations in dealing with discontinuities or strategic surprises. By detecting weak signals (Igor Ansoff, 1975), which can be perceived as important discontinuities in an organizational environment, SEWS allows organizations to react strategically ahead of time. Underlying theory[edit] The underlying assumption of SEWS is that discontinuities do not emerge without warning. These warning signs are described as "weak signals" (Ansoff, 1975), a concept aimed at early detection of those signals which could lead to strategic surprises -- events which have the potential to jeopardise an organization’s strategy. Detecting weak signals is achieved by scanning the organizational environment.
The need for a formal strategic early warning process in organizations is based in large part on the existence of blindspots, which prevents leaders and executives from identifying weak signals of change (Gilad, 1998). Phases[edit] eScanning 2.0--Environmental Scanning in the digital age | Foresight Culture. Environmental scanning is a process for monitoring an organization’s internal and external environments for clues to change that could mean new threats and opportunities. It is a different process than it was 10 or 20 years ago. The old approaches were often troublesome, narrow, weak, and too complex. They did little to foster a culture of foresight in the organization. They were usually limited to a small group of people and a periodic process—the strategic planning team and its every-few-year cycle. We are lucky now to have a broad set of tools we can use to enable, enliven, and energize scanning.
I’ve put a NASCAR picture here (Image: PocketWiley, via Flickr) because it is a great example for me of reaching beyond my usual experience and interest. So my advice in sum: go somewhere new, do something new, talk to someone new. That’s the spirit of good environmental scanning and it’s a habit you need for successful foresight. What is environmental scanning? It has been: It can become:
Horizon Scanning and Monitoring for Anticipation: Definition and Practice. Horizon scanning is a term that appeared in the early years of the 21st century and is not well-defined, being at once a tool part of the whole foresight process and a way to label this entire process (Habbeger, 2009).* We shall here consider horizon scanning as a specific tool and contrast it to monitoring, in a practical way, i.e. trying to devise the best way to accomplish each task for the best possible foresight and warning, stressing difficulties and challenges and possible ways to move forward.
The scans and monitoring done here (or forthcoming), within the framework of Red (team) Analysis, are at once samples of applied methodology, ensuring coherence between reflection and practice and real tools on real-life issues. Horizon Scanning Scanning allows for the identification of potential new themes or meta-issues and issues, that will then need to be analysed in-depth.
Horizon scanning looks thus for weak signals indicating the emergence of new meta-issues and issues. Monitoring J. What Is Horizon Scanning? | Your Info Linc. Last month I was updating my LinkedIn profile. They have a service called Skills. It’s still in Beta right now, but I like it. You can look up skills, and Linked In will tell you if demand for them is growing or not. It also shows related skills in a sidebar. Once you let them know you have a particular talent, you can add it to your profile. This has been especially helpful for me because there are lot of things I know how to do, but I don’t have the words to describe them. Especially in ways that translate easily in the business world. During a search, I came upon a skill called horizon scanning. Back to the main question of this post: what IS horizon scanning? “The concept of horizon scanning is ill-defined and used differently by various actors. Isn’t that something? It’s the kind of thing I love doing.
Like this: Like Loading... Facing the future: Sense-making in Horizon Scanning. Horizon Scanning and Monitoring for Anticipation: Definition and Practice. Environmental scanning: no excuses. Ideas on effective environmental scanning in the digital age. Looking beyond the horizon | Civil Service World. What will happen to the UK economy if the eurozone collapses? How will climate change affect our daily lives? Where might future wars be fought, and what are the weapons that might be deployed? Worries about the future affect us all, but they are particularly large and daunting for people at the heart of government. To help anticipate potential threats and opportunities, the civil service employs a mysterious group of people called ‘horizon scanners’: they model potential futures, providing the basis for strategic and long-term planning. Recent projects include examinations of the risk of natural disasters in the UK; the potential of mind-controlled weaponry; and the likelihood of Korean reunification.
Horizon scanning has long been a part of the furniture of government, particularly – though not exclusively – in the intelligence agencies; but now cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood wants to renovate Whitehall’s horizon scanning capabilities. You do what?! Innovation Starts With Sensing Future Possibilities. In 2007, a team of MIT professors decided to bet on an impossibility.
These were the days when “mobile” still meant “I’m speaking to you but my phone isn’t anchored to a cable,” when the vision for mobile advertising still looked like walking past a Starbucks and having a coffee coupon flash up on your screen (“geosensing,” they called it). These professors decided to chart a different path.
They began building a database to track little clues your mobile phone spits out whenever you use it--your device code, time of day, location info--so that they could make sense of the information. They figured their quest would be valuable to someone, so someone would pay for it. The database was practically useless at the time. Mobile phones were not pervasive, there was no central repository to which these clues were sent, and advertisers were not paying for this kind of information. I recently spoke to Sense Network’s CEO David Petersen about the journey.
[Image: Flickr user Live4Soccer]