Masterclasses are a slower, in-depth learning experience with a leading global practitioner and a small group of like-minded participants.

The Futures Thinking masterclass is running for 2 days over 12-13 November. Places are strictly limited to ensure everyone gets a substantial amount of time with the facilitator.

Futures Thinking: How to apply strategic foresight in your organisation

Bridgette Engeler (AUS)
Senior Lecturer, Swinburne University

This Masterclass is a two-day immersive program introducing you to the thinking and practice of Futures Studies and Strategic Foresight – including tools, theories, mindsets, and (of course) lots of speculation. You’ll learn how to use Futures Thinking and some strategic foresight tools in your everyday work, and identify ways to anticipate change in your projects, organisation, and industry.

The Masterclass will introduce Futures Studies and the discipline of strategic foresight including techniques that underpin the practice – exploring different ways to approach scenarios, brand development, organisation and business models, designing for change, and mapping futures.

While an organisation might believe it has a strategic plan and set future, it’s usually stuck in ‘business as usual’ and can’t see that there are many possible futures to be explored. This Masterclass will help you understand how you can start shaping the pathways to preferred futures and why that matters to every aspect of design. This class will transform the way you view today's challenges, help you anticipate new ones, and shift you toward a new way of thinking, being, and acting.

You'll learn how to:

• Work with past and emerging trends while avoiding the pitfalls of current trends (and recognise why trends are not always your friends);
• Create futures-focused scenarios using three different methods;
• Develop a more anticipatory mindset on projects;
• Use prospective thinking to design new businesses and business models; and
• Deepen your understanding of futures for people and organisations.

The two days will include academic and practical content with pre-reading provided. This will give you the skills to get started in using futures thinking, and a mindset and toolkit to apply in your organisation and continue learning in a day-to-day context.

Who should attend?

The Masterclass will be useful for anyone who is interested in designing better futures: Designers, Planners, Strategic Designers, Innovation Managers and teams, Business Consultants, Startup Founders or Social Innovators – particularly those working to create new businesses, products, and services in Innovation Labs or Accelerators.

About Bridgette

Bridgette is a pracademic working across design, strategic foresight and culture. With 20 years' experience in brand, design and innovation strategy, Bridgette's work focuses on the potential of design and futures to tackle challenges intersecting people, community and systems.

Her career began at one of Australia's best-known design firms, and she has since been involved with creating brands you may use every day. Bridgette holds a BA and MA from Monash and a Masters degree in Strategic Foresight from Swinburne. She is part of the team at Swinburne’s Living Lab that’s been working on VR and AR wearables for people with early-onset dementia and is a leading researcher with Project Geldom, a research initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop the next generation condom.

Bridgette is keen to see design shape preferred futures, not just the ‘business as usual’ stuff we’re told to expect. More importantly, she’s interested in how our individual agency will help us get to better tomorrow. Through collaborations with all types and sizes of organisation, her work spans strategic and speculative design, experiential and critical futures, and design for transition.

linkedin.com/in/bridgette-engeler

Questions

Send us an email at hello@sdnow.co, we’re happy to chat about anything that’s on your mind. We've also covered a number of regularly asked questions on our website.