 A new idea which arose from the scenario process and which challenged or developed your thinking in new ways

The EIBE scenario process was for me a new way of mixing the logical prediction with wild imagination. This is a new mixture and a new way of thinking for an engineer which usually relies on the structured logical way of thinking only. The scenario is basically a collection of new ideas that is based on present facts leading to future imaginary - yet logical - sequence of actions, all tied up with a hidden thread of logic.

In order to develop the scenario of Uzbekistan, it was necessary to do a research on the characteristics of this country, including different areas describing the life in Uzbekistan. One of the new ideas
We understood the importance and value of defining the research questions to be able to draw a clear track to follow in the research phase. It was found important to divide the major research areas among the assignment team members, but in the same time it was agreed to discuss the outcomes in group sessions to share the knowledge and align the understandings. The collaborative work in defining the Driving Forces was fun, the idea of using post-it notes was very effective in moving the DF’s around while defining the clusters.

One good lesson we learnt from Iteration-1 was about the choice of the 2 main clusters to be on the 2 axis of the scenario matrix. In Iteration one the choice was on “Local Politics” (Autocracy Vs. Democracy) and “Economy” (Open Market Vs. Closed Market), which were found to be very dependent on each other, which lead to similarities in the scenarios. This was taken into consideration while choosing the main clusters in Iteration-2, where the choice was made to reflect total independence between these two clusters on the axis. The choice this time was “Local Politics” and “Uranium”.

In fact the group thought to choose the second axe cluster to be “Water Crisis”, which was considered of high importance and impact, however it has high predictability relative to other clusters, so choosing it was violating the rules of the scenario building process, which states that the axis clusters of the scenario matrix should be of