The aim of this project is to share a number of common foresight tools in an easily accessible manner. Foresight practitioners look for ways to reduce uncertainty and by doing so, provide more clarity over what the future may hold. Just like a gold digger who continues to try to find a vein of gold, practitioners continue to work away at a problem or issue, using a wide range of mechanisms to seek out data, information or knowledge or to make sense of any obvious nuances and interconnections. Foresight practitioners often combine or undertake a sequential series of tools in the form of exercises to explore a particular issue or problem. See for example, a workshop exercise, that uses three of the tools mentioned below.

Foresight tools have been designed by academics and practitioners to answer one of three questions:

1. Scanning: How can I gain access to timely, useful and relevant data, information and/or knowledge about the future?
2. Mapping: How can I use that data, information and/or knowledge to test assumptions, identify gaps and explain relationships?
3. Scenario development: How can I apply scanning and mapping to help identify triggers, explore possible impacts, manage risks, forward engage with tricky issues, write playbooks/plans to manage possible challenges and opportunities, and most importantly, tell stories about a diverse range of possible futures?

The Institute hopes this initiative contributes to a deeper discussion about the future, not just about the insights gained from using a particular tool or a range of tools, but ideally a critical assessment of the foresight tools themselves.

The criteria that shaped the selection of these tools are as follows:

• simple to understand and use in a workshop situation
• flexible to apply to a range of problems or issues
• have a visual element that conveys the concept
• frequently applied by practitioners around the world