Future Search

Future Search is an interactive planning process used world-wide in diverse cultures to achieve shared goals and fast action. Future search leads to cooperative planning that lasts for years. The consultants at ODS have been trained in future search methodology.

Specifically, future search is a PLANNING MEETING that helps people transform their capability for action very quickly. The meeting is task-focused. It brings together 60 to 80 people in one room or hundreds in parallel rooms.

Future search brings people from all walks of life into the same conversation - those with resources, expertise, formal authority and need. They meet for 16 hours spread across three days. People tell stories about their past, present and desired future. Through dialogue they discover their common ground. Only then do they make concrete action plans.

The meeting design comes from theories and principles tested in many cultures for the past 50 years. It relies on mutual learning among stakeholders as a catalyst for voluntary action and follow-up. People devise new forms of cooperation that continue for months or years. Future searches have been run in every part of the world and sector of society.

Source: http://www.futuresearch.net/method/whatis/index.cfm