Facilitating Futures & Foresight Special Interest Group
An open, exploratory space for people interested in methods, tools, and approaches related to facilitating futures and foresight.
How do we facilitate conversations and thinking about the future with groups?
Every gathering of this SIG explores this question in some way: by experimenting with a method, investigating a specific question about the practice of facilitating futures, or learning from practitioners who share how they approach this work.
In the Facilitating Futures and Foresight SIG, we focus on developing our practice as facilitators of futures thinking and conversations.
We are interested in how facilitation can help groups look beyond the present, explore what might happen, imagine what could be different, and use that thinking to inform choices today.
Why the focus on futures and foresight? Isn't good facilitation enough?
Good facilitation is the foundation. But when it comes to having conversations about "the future", groups tend to plan for the future they expect, rather than use multiple futures to think differently about the present.
Futures facilitation asks something more: how do we help groups move beyond assumptions about what will happen, explore multiple possible futures, and then use those perspectives to make better choices in the present?
That requires particular ways of framing questions, opening up possibilities, working with uncertainty and assumptions, and bringing insights back into present-day decisions. That's the practice this SIG explores.
Join the SIG's mailing list to receive invitations to future SIG meetings
Free to participate, meetings take place online, and, of course, you can unsubscribe at any time.
About the SIG
The Facilitating Futures & Foresight Special Interest Group was created by by Suzanne Whitby in 2024.
In 2025, she joined forces with the International Association of Facilitators, which now promotes the SIG as parts of its special interest group offerings. Suzanne continues to host and organise the group.
