Disrupted Futures
Learning the basics of creative foresight through a playful futures scenario kit
Developed as part of an introductory programme on foresight thinking for the students at emlyon business school, Disrupted Futures is a hybrid tool, halfway between a creativity kit and a board game. Combining essential foresight tools with principles of game-based mediation, this kit enables the imagining and illustration of possible disruption scenarios.
The kit introduces the Futures Intelligence Agency, a fictional organisation in which students take on active roles. Their mission: to define disruptive scenarios that will help private and public stakeholders test their resilience against a series of future shocks.
These scenarios, set in the 2040 horizon, depict radical and unexpected situations — yet always grounded in research — to challenge current mental models and support decision-making in the face of uncertainty.
To guide this initial deep dive into future-making, the kit is structured around several methodological and educational objectives:
- Collaborative construction of disruption scenarios, step by step, from identifying weak signals to mapping disruption factors;
- Participants independently use the tools, following a hands-on approach to skill development.
- The production of actionable content for partner organisations, aimed at challenging or validating their strategic decision-making.
In its first use, nearly 600 students tested the Disrupted Futures kit to co-design disruption scenarios impacting the Lyon metropolitan area. Around twenty issues and challenges were explored through this kit, such as automation, sustainable transport, overpopulation, and citizen participation.
In addition to the toolkit, we produced three disruption scenarios, illustrated in the form of design fiction podcasts. These audio capsules explore a triptych of ambiguous futures that influence everyday life in the Lyon metropolitan area:
- The consequences of unequal access to smart drugs (medicines that boost productivity and cognitive abilities)
- Public communication in an era of ubiquitous disinformation and post-truth
- New forms of cohesion in a territory torn apart by communitarianism, identitarianism, and surging individualism
Disrupted Futures was developed in cooperation with the foresight research department of the Haute École de Gestion in Geneva.
