KUALA LUMPUR: THE world is changing at an unprecedented pace and becoming much more complex, leaving many organisations grappling to remain relevant in this turbulent time.
It is experiencing uncertainties brought on by advancing megatrends, such as rapid urbanisation, demographic and social changes, technological breakthrough, shifts in global economic power, climate change and resource scarcity. How then we, as a country, move forward and position ourselves for the unforeseeable future?
This article highlights Malaysia’s forward-thinking approach in charting the country’s future direction through strategic foresight and scenario planning practice.
Scenario planning is a thinking tool that helps organisations and policymakers to manage the future effectively by creating alternative views of possible future scenarios.
Governments around the world, such as that of Singapore, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan and France, have been using scenario planning to make better-informed policy recommendations, formulate military strategies, conduct risk management, technology road-mapping and set research priorities.
Scenario planning is not new in Malaysia. For years, the country’s policy and strategic positioning had revolved around Vision 2020. Now, as we approach 2020, planning for a distant future is imperative.
Hence, Chapter 10 in the 11th Malaysia Plan outlines Malaysia’s outlook beyond 2020 for the next stage of the country’s journey.
The aspirations laid out are further translated into Transformasi Nasional 2050, or Vision TN50, which aims to represent the voices of the rakyat from all walks of life, particularly the youth.
Vision 2020 and TN50 illustrate how scenario planning is used to set long-term directions for the country at the highest level.
Apart from Vision 2020 and TN50, the Malaysian Foresight Institute of the Malaysian Group of High Technology (MIGHT MyForesight), established in 1993, has spearheaded many strategic foresight and scenario planning initiatives by different ministries and government departments.
Most of these foresight documents focused on technology and industry development, such as those published by the National Science and Research Council, Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry, Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry, Transport Ministry, the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) of the Prime Minister’s Department, Public Service Department and Petronas.
Recently, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, while opening the National Science Council Meeting on Aug 10, commended Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa for spearheading the use of scenario planning methodologies in the preparation of national action plans in the public sector.
Najib emphasised that this was a clear message to intensify the use of scenario planning to ensure that the country’s long-term plans are in line with future needs.
In this regard, the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit
(Mampu), together with the Civil Service Delivery Unit of EPU, have been tasked to ensure that ministries and agencies are equipped with scenario-planning capabilities, including mastering the tools, methodologies and relevant key performance indexes.
Trainers will be deployed to assist public sector agencies in developing their capabilities. Scenario planning is not an easy task. The process involves environmental scanning to explore and analyse key drivers of change, which will be used to construct plausible future images in the form of stories.
This deviates from the conventional method of presenting dry facts and figures. Therefore, scenario planning challenges the conventional thinking paradigm by emphasising critical and creative thinking abilities.
For government agencies that wish to embark on a scenario planning exercise, they should be aware of the challenges and have the right mind set to ensure success.
Depending on the objectives and scopes, this exercise will be a long and arduous task, which will take months or even years to complete. The top most critical success factors are to have a clear objective, strong commitment and sufficient resources in terms of manpower, finance and time, together with a great deal of knowledge, expertise, information and data.
Scenario planning is not about predicting the future, but to prepare for a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment through the use of critical thinking, creativity and imagination.
The inculcation of future-thinking and scenario-planning practices in the public sector is timely to drive the success of Vision TN50, securing Malaysia’s competitiveness in the international arena.