Posted by Adam Gordon on Jul 16, 2010 in all, policy, risk management | 0 comments
I was interested to see FEMA’s (U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency) launch of its “Getting Urgent About the Future” Strategic Foresight Initiative, not only in itself unfashionably embracing deeper, longer-term thinking about key policy & security issues, but also making an excellent fist of defining its benefits (a definition that is in all essentials equally valid for business-industry foresight):
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“The world around us is changing in ways that may have profound effects on the emergency management enterprise. Collectively, we must begin to think more broadly and over a longer timeframe if we are to understand these changes and their potential impacts. To this end, FEMA has launched a Strategic Foresight initiative (SFI), the objective of which is straightforward: to seek to understand how the world around us is changing and how those changes may affect the future of emergency management and our community…
“The SFI can serve as one important tool in the development of both strategy and plans. By understanding the potential future environment, organizations will better understand and anticipate risk while ensuring opportunities can be fully capitalized. For example, the SFI may identify new or increasing capability requirements as well as emerging capabilities that do not exist today. Such identifications could support decisions about future investments as well as planning activities and exercises. In a more indirect manner, the SFI can help establish a research agenda for the emergency management field by highlighting areas of emerging relevance and the key questions that remain unanswered.”
[On March 1, 2003, FEMA became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.]