The Futures Workshop

Following our episode three conversation with Professor Sohail Inayatullah on his Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) tool, in this episode we imagine using it in a workshop setting.

Like all our even-numbered episodes, this one is aimed at practitioners and facilitators who want some practical examples of tool-use to assist with their own skill-building. If you’re a general listener you may wish to skip these workshop episodes and enjoy our interview episodes instead.

Thanks for the feedback from practitioners here and on Linked In! Please keep it coming, we enjoy working with you to make these workshop episodes as useful as possible.

Useful links:

https://www.metafuture.org/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com

In this third episode we chat with Professor Sohail Inayatullah, who is one of the planet’s biggest names when it comes to futures studies (actually, when it comes to any sort of studies - he’s in the top two per cent of scientists worldwide as measured by citations).

CLA, or Causal Layered Analysis, is a tool Sohail created to get to the hidden layers that drive our thoughts, beliefs and actions. In this conversation he talks about why he created the tool, how it works in practice and tips for facilitators. He peppers this advice with plenty of real-world examples from his work with organisations around the globe.

In our next episode Victoria will take this conversation and turn it into an imagined workshop. Until then please enjoy our interview with Sohail!

Music for this episode created by The Beths

Produced by Jesse

Logo design by Hazel Mulligan

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com

Something I often hear from international practitioners is that they want more access to futures tools - to find out what’s new, what’s working and how it might work for them.

That’s one of the reasons I created this podcast - to “spread the word” about the amazing things happening in the futures space globally, and to share my interpretation of how each tool might be used in a workshop setting.

We’re in deep at this point! While episode one (and all our interview episodes) are designed to be enjoyed by the general listener, the workshop episodes like this one are aimed squarely at practitioners and facilitators who might benefit from hearing the tools used in practice.

If you’ve signed up to The Futures Workshop out of a general interest in futures thinking, feel free to skip these alternate episodes. But if you are somebody who works with groups (or aspires to), I’m hoping these imagined workshops will be a unique and useful sessions to listen in on.

As I mention in the episode, this is an experiment! We’ll keep tinkering with the format in the hope we can create something genuinely valuable for futures practitioners around the world. Your feedback is very welcome throughout - thank you for your support of episode one and we hope you enjoy this follow up on Bill Sharpe’s Three Horizons framework.

www.futurestewards.com is the home of the 3H Network. There you will find:

* Practice Network page has links to organisations using 3H, and in particular to the resources made available by the main originators of the practice: International Futures Forum and H3Uni

* The Resources page has more resources, particularly the Ten Tools for Systems Change with accompanying introductory videos.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com

In episode one we meet Bill Sharpe, who tells us about his Three Horizons tool. We talk about the origins of the tool, how Bill uses it in practice and what tips he has for faciliators and practitioners looking to adopt Three Horizons in their own work.

This was an interesting and inspiring conversation! As with all our interviews it’s designed with the professional futures practitioner in mind, though if you’re new to the area this is a great place to start - Bill tells me Three Horizons is a great ‘first tool’, to help audiences understand futures, but also to equip somebody hired into a future facing role to hit the ground running on day one.

We hope you enjoy this episode. We’re new to podcasting so please bear with us through any technical bugs or oversights - most importantly please let us know what you think of the podcast, good or bad, and we’ll work on incorporating your feedback into future episodes. To our Northern Hemisphere listeners including Bill, thank you for hanging in there with this thick New Zealand accent!

And now, please enjoy our conversation with Bill Sharpe.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com

Hello and kia ora to futures thinkers around the world.

I’m Victoria Mulligan from Aotearoa-New Zealand launching, with great excitement, my new futures podcast out into the world.

In the coming weeks I’ll share my conversations with the world’s leading futurists, challenging them to each select one futures tool to share with our global audience of practitioners.

Each episode will feature a new one-on-one (two-on-one if you count my producer/husband who sometimes chips in) with an international guest, followed by a second mid-week mini-episode in which you’ll have the opportunity to experience the tool in practice, using what we’ve learnt from our interview.

This podcast is aimed at existing futures practitioners of all levels, at people running strategic foresight in companies and other organisations, and at anyone who’s heard about this area of “futures studies” and wants to find out more.

I chose this format because, as a futures consultant myself, I often hear that people want to incorporate more futures thinking into their work but aren’t sure where to start - or they’ve come across a certain tool or approach but don’t quite have the knowledge, experience or confidence to make sure they’re doing it right.

This podcast is for you! (And, for me!) Here they are, the tools you need to imagine and shape the future, presented to you with love by the people who created them.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com