Practical Guide for Facilitating a Futures Workshop

Lauttamäki, Ville

2014

Descargar documento

Futures studies as a discipline and its methods have become more commonplace during the past decades. Together with growing interest towards the field, also the need for information on how to apply futures studies methods in practice has increased. This concise “entry-level” guide for facilitating futures workshops is an attempt to partially answer that demand. It should be noted that there are many possible ways of facilitating a futures workshop. The ACTVOD process briefly presented in this booklet shouldn’t be seen as the only correct way to search for future possibilities in a workshop setting. The format of a futures workshop presented here shows how a typical workshop facilitated by the Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC) Turku office is carried out. Typically this format is used when seeking answers to practical questions (e.g. future of an industry) and devising action plans for achieving desired future at a one-day workshop. Presented views are founded on author’s experience on facilitating tens of dozens of workshops for various groups mostly in Finland between years 2006–2014. Since the purpose of this guide is to inform on practical issues related to facilitating a workshop, discussion on many interesting and important issues related to participatory methods in general and workshop method in particular is kept to a minimum (for a detailed guide on using a range of participatory methods, see Slocum, 2003). Reader who is interested in more detailed information on characteristics of futures workshops is encouraged to familiarise himself with key journals and textbooks of the field (See section “further reading” at the end of this document). This guide begins with a short introduction of the history and potential uses of futures workshop. After that practical issues to consider before, during and after a futures workshop are presented.

Facilitación; Taller;