Futures Mapping

In April, we had the pleasure of having Health Futurist Zayna Khayat, Ph.D. lead us through an activity for futures mapping around potential healthcare futures. Zayna, like so many of us who are embracing futures ways of being, holds several titles: 1) Adjunct Professor, Health Sector Strategy, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto; 2) Health futurist in residence, Deloitte Canada, Life Sciences & Healthcare practice; and 3) Growth advisor to various health tech companies including: Teladoc Health Canada and Quadrivia AI.

First, Zayna brought some joy into the room. She asked us each to share, “What’s one thing that brought you joy this week?”

Zayna provided instructions. First, pick a probable change or event, and place it at the center of a map. Second, imagine the first-order implications: What is likely to happen because of that change, positive and negative.

Zayna used the example of obesity rates plummeting because of the GLP-1 inhibitor drugs that are increasingly available.

And then we all tried it ourselves. Each of us made a map with our own imagined future state in the center. After about 10 minutes of deep thinking, we checked in on other maps and added additional implications to other future stories on the board.

After the hands-on activity we chatted together about questions and ideas:

• What goes in the middle?

  • A signal at its fruition

  • An event

  • A cluster of several signals

• How probable vs. speculative?

  • Probable. 

• Only unintended consequences?

  • Intended and unintended. Wildcards. Force your brain to think of the unexpected

• Questions and thoughts

  • What about practicing facilitation with diverse stakeholders who don’t agree?

    • Give a map to everyone in the room, and ask them all to prioritize individually. If they are all scattered, lots of work to do. If they all vote for the same– great! The strategy is there!

  • This connected to Lean Mgt Skills – aligns with fishbone diagrams. Create the ideas first, don’t group them first. 

Join us for future Futures Meetups here!