How to Future

Have you ever looked at the headlines—political unrest, climate catastrophe, AI breakthroughs—and wondered, “How do I even begin to make sense of what’s coming?” In How to Future: Leading and Sense-Making in an Age of Hyperchange, futurists Scott Smith and Madeline Ashby argue that understanding the future isn’t about prediction—it’s about participation. They contend that futuring is a process, not a destination: a practical, methodical way to imagine, test, and prepare for emerging worlds rather than waiting to be shaped by them.

Most of us, they say, consume “The Future” like a brand—something sold to us by tech companies or politicians. We decorate our walls with slogans like “Tomorrow, today!” but rarely pause to question whose future that really is. Smith and Ashby’s central argument is that futuring should be democratized. You don’t need to be a professional futurist to think critically about tomorrow. From managers and policymakers to teachers and activists, anyone can learn to “future” effectively—with the right tools and mindsets.

Why Futuring Matters Now

The authors paint an urgent backdrop: nations and industries are faltering amid hyperchange—climate instability, automation, social fragmentation, and the collapse of old narratives like the social contract. Meanwhile, mass media oscillates between utopia and dystopia, leaving little room for nuance. Against this binary, Smith and Ashby invite readers to step into the role of active futurers. In Madeline Ashby’s words, “Your utopia is always somebody else’s dystopia.” The book insists that plurality—multiple possible futures—is the real antidote to fatalism.

From Forecasts to Frameworks

Instead of crystal balls and grand predictions, How to Future offers a structured approach through nine practical phases. It begins with scoping—defining whose future is being explored—and moves through sensing (collecting signals and trends), sense-making (finding patterns), scenario development (storytelling possible worlds), and prototyping (creating tangible artefacts of those worlds). Later chapters focus on measuring impact and building a sustainable futuring culture.

Each phase blends elements of strategic foresight, design thinking, and ethnography. The process is cyclical rather than linear—future work happens iteratively, much like software design. Futuring, Smith and Ashby stress, should be “always-on”: an organizational behavior that continuously adapts to change, not an annual report exercise.

The Human Side of Futuring

The book dives deeply into how people perceive time, uncertainty, and agency. Not everyone “futures” in the same way—some think linearly (past-to-present-to-future), while others see time as cyclical. Some treat uncertainty as a threat; others use it as creative material. Learning to future well, the authors argue, means recognizing and bridging these differences. Smith draws on his global experience at Changeist—a practice that’s worked with organizations from UNICEF to Google—to show how diverse teams can find common ground. Every team, he insists, is full of latent futurists—they just need frameworks to unlock that capacity.

Why You’re a Futurist Already

Perhaps the most empowering idea of the book is that “We are all futurists now.” If you’ve ever prepared for a business pivot, imagined your retirement, or wondered how your city might evolve, you’re already doing futuring. The challenge is making it intentional and structured. The authors show how to move from casual speculation to purposeful exploration—how to filter noise, recognize signals, and frame questions that lead to action. As they write, “Not doing is not knowing.”

From Imagination to Design

The most tangible part of Smith and Ashby’s method comes in the later chapters on scenario building and storytelling. They demonstrate how futures can be experienced through prototypes—objects, media, or interactions that bring a speculative scenario to life. For instance, they describe designing a speculative newspaper about big data and football, or mock refugee identity kits for humanitarian futures. These “artefacts from the future” transform abstract insights into concrete experiences. This approach aligns with Stuart Candy’s concept of “experiential futures,” where futures aren’t read—they’re felt.

Leadership for the Future-Ready

Ultimately, How to Future reframes leadership. Future-ready leaders, Smith writes, don’t command certainty—they cultivate agility. They enable their teams to think nonlinearly, question official futures, and accept uncertainty as a resource. The goal isn’t to avoid risk but to know how to navigate it. This skill set, he claims, is as essential for a tech startup as for a public servant or activist mobilizing for climate justice. “Leadership must enable a culture that views uncertainty as material to build with, not as risk to be mitigated.”

The Larger Mission: Improving Reality

In its conclusion, the book circles back to a moral premise: seeing a better world obligates you to help make it real. Borrowing anthropologist Genevieve Bell’s words, Smith affirms that futuring is not escapism—it’s activism. The authors invite you to use futuring to envision inclusive, resilient societies—and to approach tomorrow as an active verb. As you learn to map signals, design scenarios, and test possibilities, How to Future reminds you that the most radical act of futuring isn’t predicting the next trend—it’s participating in the change already unfolding.

Scott Smith and Madeline Ashby redefine leadership for an age of hyperchange. They argue that successful leaders today no longer rely on fixed visions or neat five-year plans. Instead, they practice futuring—a toolset that helps them anticipate, adapt, and act across multiple possible futures. Leadership, in this model, is less about directing outcomes and more about cultivating foresight and flexibility within a team or organization.

Rethinking Leadership in Volatile Times

The authors note that today’s environment is adversarial, volatile, and nonlinear. Traditional strategic planning—built on prediction and control—now fails under the weight of complexity. “Reactive repositioning,” Smith writes, only ensures defensive response. Futuring, though, moves from reaction to anticipation. It’s the art of understanding emerging dynamics, imagining how they might unfold, and deciding proactively how to steer between them. Leaders must stop asking, “What will happen?” and start asking, “What might happen—and what can we do about it?”

Building Futuring Cultures

Strong leadership isn’t just personal foresight—it’s a cultural asset. The book describes how leadership must enable autonomy at the edges of organizations, empowering those closest to change to act. Whether in a newsroom or a government agency, a future-facing culture grows when teams are comfortable working with uncertainty. To foster that comfort, leaders should provide clear frameworks, accessible methods, and psychological safety—making futuring a shared language rather than an esoteric utility.

From Fixed Vision to Scenaric Stance

Drawing from Jay Ogilvy’s “scenaric stance,” Smith suggests that great leaders hold multiple possibilities in mind simultaneously. Instead of betting on one projection, they maintain readiness for many outcomes. Ogilvy’s concept transforms rigidity into resilience: good leadership means mapping potential futures, understanding uncertainties, and acting with awareness that each choice shapes the terrain ahead. The authors compare this to sailing—you can’t chart one course forever; you tack and adjust as conditions change.

A Call to Futuring as Public Service

In Smith’s view, futuring isn’t limited to boardrooms—it belongs to activists, educators, civil servants, and technologists alike. From Dubai’s foresight offices to local initiatives like Wales’s Commissioner for Future Generations, the practice of proactive anticipation is becoming institutional. Leadership now means creating conditions for participation in futuring—not hoarding insight but distributing it. The goal is collective sense-making, not prophetic prediction. As Smith concludes, “Leadership must provide tools, structure, and encouragement for others to future—and listen to what they discover.”

In the book’s first chapter, Smith reveals a profound truth: there’s no single way to imagine the future. Everyone carries unique cultural, psychological, and linguistic models of time and possibility. Recognizing these differences is essential if you want to collaborate meaningfully on any future-facing project.

Modes of Thinking

Some people, Smith explains, take an “inside view”—focused on immediate data and experience, extrapolating directly from what they know. Others take an “outside view”—considering broader patterns and external influences. The latter, based on Daniel Kahneman’s research, leads to more accurate forecasts. Cognitive biases like hindsight and confirmation bias also distort futurists’ thinking. Learning to balance these perspectives helps you see your blind spots and engage others whose models differ.

Different Understandings of Time

Cultures define time in diverse ways. Western societies tend to see time linearly—moving from past to future—while many Middle Eastern or African cultures view it as cyclical or simultaneous. Faith traditions often add spiritual dimensions, interpreting the future as preordained fate or divine unfolding. In describing work with Arabic-speaking students, Smith notes how translation reshaped futures discourse: while English terms like “possible” and “plausible” speak to probability, Arabic analogs such as muqbil and maqool convey conceivability. Even the word for “future”—mostaqbal—implies time-to-come, while muqbil evokes destiny.

Comfort with Uncertainty

Societies differ in their tolerance for uncertainty. Data-driven institutions often treat ambiguity as failure, forcing premature convergence on one option. Smith urges readers to view uncertainty as creative raw material, not risk. “Uncertainty requires space, time, and resources to explore,” he writes. In a futuring workshop, admitting “I don’t know” can unlock innovation rather than halt progress.

Agency and The “Official Future”

Across organizations, official futures—like Moore’s Law or Silicon Valley’s faith in endless innovation—become unquestioned scripture. Such narratives restrict possibility. Most people feel they have little agency to shape what’s next; official futures belong to CEOs or politicians. Futuring restores that agency by making foresight participatory. As Smith puts it, “The stories we tell ourselves about the future can become barriers to change if not questioned.” When you acknowledge these cultural and cognitive biases, you can craft futures that belong to everyone, not just a powerful few.

One of the most practical sections of How to Future teaches you how to collect, filter, and interpret signals—the small clues that hint at larger shifts. This discipline, known as horizon scanning, helps organizations anticipate emerging opportunities and threats long before they become obvious.

Sensing vs. Scanning

Smith differentiates between sensing—a personal capacity to notice change—and scanning—a structured research process. Sensing is “active noticing”; it’s about cultivating curiosity. Scanning, meanwhile, aggregates those observations into patterns. The two work together: the world provides endless data, but insight comes from organized perception.

Weak Signals, Trends, and Drivers

You start by spotting weak signals—tiny anomalies like an Indonesian coder developing pollution detection algorithms or Dutch citizens requesting age changes for legal fairness. When repeated, these signals form trends, patterns of change that may unfold over months or years. Beneath trends lie drivers, the deep forces (like demographics or governance systems) shaping long-term transformation. Together, signals, trends, and drivers form the “glaciers and weather fronts” of the future.

How to Scan Effectively

The authors provide concrete advice: diversify sources. Mix professional journals, blogs, reports, social platforms, and field observations. Use both structured tools—like Feedly and Google Alerts—and unstructured methods like conversations or photography. They caution against “abyss gaze,” a term borrowed from novelist Warren Ellis, meaning the paralysis caused by information overload. Too much scrolling leads to anxiety and distortion. Futuring demands intentional curation and periodic reflection.

From Noise to Insight

Finally, sense-making transforms data into meaning. The team at Changeist often organizes global scans through collaborative digital workflows, tagging signals by relevance and theme. Whether you’re a journalist, engineer, or nonprofit leader, this approach equips you to tune into emerging change. As Smith writes, “Not waiting for a need to scan means signals have already been lost.” The future rarely announces itself loudly—it whispers. Learning to listen early is the first act of transformation.

Once you’ve gathered signals, the next task is to structure them. In Chapters 4 and 5, Smith and Ashby guide you through sense-making and scenario development—the heart of the futuring process. These phases turn research into strategic stories you can act upon.

Mapping Trends

Mapping organizes trends and drivers across dimensions like time, certainty, and impact. The authors use the STEEP framework—Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political—to categorize forces shaping change. Sorting trends by STEEP ensures balance and helps identify blind spots. For example, in a project on AI futures, Smith’s team mapped trends from uncanny robot bodies to climate costs of data centers, revealing that environmental and ethical dimensions mattered as much as technical ones.

Adding Horizons and Certainty

They then frame time as a series of horizons—near (0–3 years), mid (3–7 years), and long (7–10+ years). Certainty levels—probable, plausible, possible—help prioritize attention. A map filled only with near-term, high-certainty trends signals narrow vision; sparse future zones indicate areas to research. This visual layout turns data into conversation: teams debate what belongs where and why.

From Maps to Stories

Scenario development extends mapping into narrative form. Using “rough draft roadmapping,” participants connect drivers and trends into thematic threads. Each thread tells a story—like communities detaching from national power grids through local renewable systems. Smith and Ashby encourage writers to add consequences using impact wheels (Jerome Glenn’s tool tracing first-, second-, and third-order effects). This technique helps teams imagine how small changes ripple through systems.

Finding Patterns and Gateways

In their client work with Comcast, Changeist mapped thirty-five trends in streaming and data, developing five distinct scenarios—from personalized smart homes to urban media collectives. These narratives functioned as “gateways” for strategic reflection and storytelling. As Smith notes, good futuring isn’t about accuracy—it’s about generating insight that reshapes decisions. A vivid scenario, written or prototyped, becomes a container for learning from the future before it arrives.

In the most imaginative part of the book, Smith and Ashby explain how to bring future stories to life through prototyping and design. Telling people about the future isn’t enough—they must experience it. The authors blend design fiction, speculative art, and foresight to craft tangible artefacts from possible worlds.

From Scenarios to Artefacts

They describe using the Experiential Futures Ladder by Stuart Candy and Jake Dunagan, which moves from abstract world ideas to concrete “stuff”—objects, services, media, or experiences that make a future feel real. For the International Federation of Red Cross project, they created “identity kits” for displaced climate refugees. Each object—a DyNaMo mobility card, a fingerprint scanner, an instruction manual—conveyed an entire world through design language. The artefact became a portal to empathy.

Making the Future Mundane

Nick Foster’s idea of the “Future Mundane” inspires Smith to prototype ordinary situations—a waiting room, a press briefing, a vending machine—where unfamiliar futures unfold through familiar formats. Near Future Laboratory’s speculative football newspaper and Changeist’s fictional podcasts are examples of this method. By packaging futures inside recognizable artefacts, audiences suspend disbelief and engage critically with new possibilities.

Ethics and Participation

The authors emphasize ethical care: in the age of misinformation, futurists must clearly frame speculative artefacts to avoid deception. They cite futurist Jake Dunagan’s warning that design fiction now operates “in the theater of operations of reality.” Futuring must reveal, not exploit. Effective scenarios provoke thought, not confusion.

Lossy Futures: Less Is More

Borrowing Smith’s concept of “lossy futures,” the authors remind creators that you don’t need cinematic detail—the brain fills gaps. A simple mock press release, poster, or “unboxing video from 2045” can invite profound reflection. “Design for engagement, curiosity, and debate,” Smith says. In experiencing futures, audiences connect emotionally, translating speculation into realization. Futuring turns imagination into foresight—and foresight into empathy.

After the creative rush of storytelling, Smith and Ashby return to practicality: how do you measure if futuring works? Chapter 7 introduces tools for assessing effectiveness in both projects and organizations. Their message: futures impact is less about prediction accuracy and more about how well it prompts better decisions in the present.

Scenario Readiness

The authors propose evaluating “readiness” across five layers: People, Knowledge, Tools, Rules, and Networks. Ask: Do we have the talent to adapt to this scenario? The data and platforms? The partnerships to implement change? Mapping these elements exposes gaps and guides investment. Even rough ratings from 1 (not ready) to 5 (prepared) generate valuable insight.

Return on Vision

Rather than traditional ROI, Smith introduces “Return on Vision.” He recalls a student’s insight that moonshot projects—like Apollo—yield immeasurable benefits beyond immediate metrics, from water filtration to cloud computing. Organizations should measure long-term value created by visionary initiatives, not just quarterly profit.

From KPIs to Insight

The book critiques our obsession with KPIs. Quantitative metrics rarely capture transformation. Instead, use qualitative indicators: changes in mindset, dialogue, strategic agility, and cross-sector collaboration. Public foundations like Nesta demonstrate ways to collect feedback from both experts and citizens after futuring exhibitions, blending emotional and analytical analysis.

Linking Foresight to Organizational DNA

Ultimately, measurement becomes cultural embedding. When teams regularly discuss futures, track emerging signals, and review implications of choices, futuring turns into reflex. It becomes part of organizational DNA—a habit of seeing ahead and adjusting course continually. As Smith concludes, “You can’t weigh kilograms of futures shipped, but you can trace cultural acts of imagination.”

The final chapters explore how to sustain futuring beyond workshops—to build cultures that consistently think ahead. Smith and Ashby show how organizations can institutionalize futures literacy, turning experimentation into everyday strategy.

From One-Off Projects to Systems

Futuring often starts as isolated exercises. To last, it needs community and repetition. Smith lists tangible outcomes that indicate success: provoking critical conversations, expanding speculation, seeding agility, influencing strategy, and engaging the public. These aren’t metrics—they’re behaviors. When people routinely ask “what if?” before deciding “what next?”, futuring is alive.

Futuring as Collaborative Learning

The authors liken a good futuring culture to a creative studio or a civic forum—places where dialogue produces insight. They describe Changeist’s work with ASOS, where staff rotated through “future talks” about globalization, work, and consumption, leaving with shared vocabulary. Similar practices occur at Singapore’s Centre for Strategic Futures and Dubai’s Future Foundation, which hold public exhibitions and policy workshops to normalize futures discourse.

Shifting Mindsets from Defense to Anticipation

Most institutions react to change defensively, scrambling after disruption hits. Futuring cultivates anticipation, moving people forward into opportunities before they appear. Over time, exposure to alternative scenarios “moves the window of possibility,” expanding what’s politically or organizationally imaginable (a concept borrowed from Joseph Overton).

Human Lessons for Futuring

Ashby closes with practical wisdom from teaching foresight: be polite; listen to contradictory stories (her “Rashomon theory” of multiple truths); do your homework; build vulnerability and trust; and have fun. Futuring is creative, emotional work—you’re not just mapping systems; you’re imagining better worlds. As Ray Bradbury’s quote reminds readers, “Predicting the future is easy; building it is hard. To hell with more—I want better.”