Using scenarios to challenge and change management thinking
By: WRIGHT, Alex
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Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: UK : Routledge, January 2005Subject(s): Scenarios | Scenario planning | Strategy | Quality in EuropeTotal Quality Management & Business Excellence 16, 1, p. 87 - 103 Abstract: This article identifies that one of the primary tasks of quality is to challenge the way managers think. Quality accomplishes this from an operational perspective while scenarios are presented as a way of achieving this same goal from a strategic stance. The scenario approach is argued to have similarities with a quality sensitivity, in that it is essentially processual in nature (van der Heijden, 1996) and has organisational learning as its ultimate focus (De Geus, 1988). Scenarios are explained and contrasted with traditional approaches to strategy and the various definitions, purposes and benefits proposed by its advocates are presented and discussed in relation to quality issues such as six sigma. A scenario matrix is constructed for the future of quality in Europe. This matrix allows for the grouping of key forces and trends that may affect the role of quality in Europe into loose couplings of relationships. The four quadrants of the matrix provide the basis for four alternative scenarios depicting quality in Europe in the year 2008; each scenario is briefly explained.
This article identifies that one of the primary tasks of quality is to challenge the way managers think. Quality accomplishes this from an operational perspective while scenarios are presented as a way of achieving this same goal from a strategic stance. The scenario approach is argued to have similarities with a quality sensitivity, in that it is essentially processual in nature (van der Heijden, 1996) and has organisational learning as its ultimate focus (De Geus, 1988). Scenarios are explained and contrasted with traditional approaches to strategy and the various definitions, purposes and benefits proposed by its advocates are presented and discussed in relation to quality issues such as six sigma. A scenario matrix is constructed for the future of quality in Europe. This matrix allows for the grouping of key forces and trends that may affect the role of quality in Europe into loose couplings of relationships. The four quadrants of the matrix provide the basis for four alternative scenarios depicting quality in Europe in the year 2008; each scenario is briefly explained.
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