Set 1. Learning Methods (Investigative thinking)
Key Practice Specialties and Communities for Adaptive Foresight
- Accounting & Intangibles – Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). Since 1919. The leading association for cost accounting, financial planning, and decision support, the most important metrics for any for-profit firm. Annual Conference, CMA certification. Strategic Finance; Assessing intangible assets and liabilities is done in specialties like management accounting, marketing, analysis, and strategy. Many intangibles are not easily measured, or even seen. We need surveys, focus groups, and other tools to track and analyze intangible variables, like morale, reputation, and customer satisfaction. The National Customer Service Association (NCSA) is a leading practice community for customer satisfaction. For intangibles in general, see Hubbard’s How to Measure Anything (2014).
- Intelligence & Knowledge Management – Collective Intelligence Academic Community (CIAC). Annual conference. Digital CI platforms, human computer interaction, crowdsourcing, crowdsolving, crowdfunding, and crowdfounding, group incentives and dynamics; Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP). Since 1986. Helps professionals in competitive intelligence (legal and ethical information gathering and analysis). Runs an Annual Conference and Regional Summits. Bimonthly CI Magazine; The Knowledge Management Professional Society (KMPro). The largest knowledge management practice group. It offers certifications and training. KM is another field still early in practice development. Most organizations don’t even have good wikis or incentives to capture and refine their often-deep organizational knowledge.
- Learning & Development – Association for Talent Development (ATD). Since 1945. Leading professional association for workplace training, learning and development (L&D). Three annual conferences, L&D certifications, local chapters. T+D Magazine. Workplace training is being greatly empowered today by EdTech startups and behavioral science.
Key Learning-Associated Practitioner Methods
Popper et al. (2007)
Argument/Belief Maps and Mind Maps
Graphical mapping of schools of thought and evidence, or differences of opinion, around a complex topic.
Benchmarking
Comparing one’s processes and performance metrics to industry and company bests (related to competitive intell.).
Causal Layered Analysis
Multi-level critical analysis (litany, causes, worldview, metaphor) of events or processes to aid learning.
Collective Intelligence
Public, open, online methods of crowd-evaluating, -comparing, and -analyzing opportunities and threats.
Competitive Intelligence
Getting, analyzing, and using intelligence about competitors’ activities, intellectual property, products, and customers.
Cost Accounting
Methods to learn the true costs of various current and potential business actions, to aid decisions.
Domain Mapping
Methods (concept maps, relevance trees, social network maps) to map an environment or prob. domain.
Ethnography
Study of the cultural litany of foresight.
Emerging Issue Identification (Weak Signals)
Identifying events (for further analysis) that may grow into potential problems or opportunities.
Environmental Scanning
Processes for finding and monitoring external news and events of potential relevance to the client organization.
Interviews
A mostly qualitative research tool for conversational information collection from human subjects.
Journaling and Diaries
Methods and software to report and self-assess your daily actions. Allows you to learn about yourself.
Knowledge Management Platforms
Methods and software to capture, map, monitor, filter, and route relevant organizational knowledge.
Leadership Development
Training and methods to develop managers into leaders in the firm’s core business functions.
Literature Review
A summary of current theoretical, methodological, or practical knowledge on a subject.
Measurement and Signals Intelligence
Knowledge gained by sensing & measuring environmental activity, and monitoring communications.
Retrofuturism (History of Foresight)
Study of the history of future litanies, models, predictions, and depictions.
Soft Systems Methodology
A method for systems modeling that uses consensus-seeking and non-quantitative approaches.
Surveys and Opinion Polling
Polling for qualitative and quantitative group data. Statistical surveys assess characteristics of a population.
Systems Thinking
Domain mapping & qualitative causal modeling of critical stocks, flows, variables in systems of interest.
Technical Intelligence
Gathering, analyzing, using intelligence about academic, business, and other actors’ R&D capabilities.
Triple Bottom Line (Sustainability) Accounting
An expanded version of business accounting that assesses social, environmental, and economic benefits.
