Teaching scenario planning: Lessons from practice in academe and business

In this paper, we engage with O'Brien's [O'Brien, F.A., 2004. Scenario planning - lessons for practice from teaching and learning. European Journal of Operational Research 152, 709-722] identification of both pitfalls in teaching scenario planning and proposed remedies for these. We consider these remedies in relation to our own experience - based on our practice in both the academic and business arenas - and we highlight further pitfalls and proposed remedies. Finally, we propose the use of 'hard' multi-attribute decision analysis as a complement to 'soft' scenario planning, in order to allow a more formal method of strategy evaluation against a range of constructed scenarios, This approach is intended to remedy biases that are associated with holistic evaluations - such as lexicographic ranking - where undue attention is paid to particular strategic objectives at the expense of others. From this discussion, we seek to contribute to cumulative refinement of the scenario process.