Using Morphological Analysis to Support Long-Term Strategic Thinking

Authors Meredith Bowden & Dave Godden

A core strategic question that all organisations who want to think seriously about the long-term should be asking is if the future starts to emerge differently to the one we have planned for, how early would we realise, and how quickly could we recalibrate our strategy for this different emerging future?

‘Morphological analysis’ is a systematic, robust and replicable method that helps organisations to respond to this challenge.  It helps organisations to think about a broad range of interesting, evidence-based and plausible futures that have a direct impact on what the organisation needs to do today.  It also provides a framework which is tailored to guide the organisation’s ongoing scanning for signs of how the future is emerging in order to be able to respond wisely and early, and to reduce to ‘element of surprise’. The morphological approach can be combined with quantitative risk assessment approaches (eg Bowden, Lane & Martin 2001) to examine the risks and opportunities within a range of scenarios and to develop wise strategy to take the organisation into an uncertain future.  The complex and technical nature of morphological analysis means that sadly it is not well understood or widely utilised in organisational strategic planning processes. The huge benefits of using this method when planning for the very long-term suggest that it is worth taking a moment to demystify the method.

Pop Morph

Morphological analysis, or ‘morph’ as it is sometimes affectionately known, can be thought of as a future ‘story starter’ machine.  It can be hard to imagine stories about the future that are not influenced by our assumptions about the world.  The future 'story starter' machine provides a systematic way to generate stories about the future that are designed to challenge assumptions.  Perhaps the simplest way of understanding morphological analysis is to use the metaphor of a poker machine (Voros 2018).  When you pull the lever, the reels spin.  Each reel lands on a type of fruit and you end up with a combination of fruits.  If you pull the lever again, you end up with a different combination of fruits. Each combination provides a skeleton for building a story about the future.  And each story is related to all the others as they are all based on the same reels. !  

For a fun illustration of how this works, check out Scholastic’s "Story Starters Scrambler".

Morph Glossary

It is useful to have a conceptual understanding of a number of terms before going into the technical explanation of Morphological Analysis.

Sectors.  These are the reels of the poker machine

Factors.  These are the fruit on the reels

Settings.  These are the combinations of fruits across the reels

Sector/factor array or morphological array.  If you unwound the reels and laid them flat, side-by-side, in a matrix

Morphological analysis.  A method for systematically examining all possible combinations

A Technical Explanation

At the core of morphological analysis is the ‘morphological array’ which is developed using an extensive and professional environmental scanning effort as a foundation.  The array can be a powerful tool for showing organisations how uncertain and broad the plausible states of the future are, while at the same time providing a structure and framework that can be used to sense-make through this uncertainty. The array is built from the combination of a set of domains, or ‘sectors’, of relevance to an organisation, and a series of plausible states, or ‘factors’, within each of these sectors. These sectors and factors are identified based on the initial scanning research.  Each combination of sector/factors is referred to as a ‘setting’.  The below is an example of a sector/factor array, where Geopolitics, Economy, Climate and Society are the sectors, and the factors for each are identified as P1, E1, C1 etc.  An example of a setting is “P2, E1, C3, S1”.

Ok, I’ve got a Morphological Array.  What can it be used for???

Challenge assumptions

A morphological array provides a valuable way of structuring the results of environmental scanning in a form that helps an organisation to reflect on the implications of the scanning results for their strategic thinking. When an array includes an organisation’s current significant assumptions about the future as one sector-factor setting alongside a range of other plausible sector-factor settings generated from evidence discovered through scanning, it can highlight to an organisation the extent to which their current thinking is based on a set of disputable assumptions about the future.  This process therefore helps organisations to surface and question their assumptions about the future and to think about what they would do in a future that emerges differently to the one they expect. Changing the factor settings within a sector in the morphological array demonstrates to the organisation that, if just one or two of the factors within a sector on the array change, futures could play out quite differently to the future they have planned for. 

Scenarios

As mentioned above, morphological analysis is like a future ‘story starter’ machine.   Using the array, detailed scenarios can be developed for the organisation based on a select number of sector-factor combinations that are particularly useful or interesting to the organisation. Scenarios developed from a morphological array that has been informed by rigorous scanning have the benefit of a high degree of complexity and rich detail whilst maintaining a strong internal logic. Useful strategic conversations can be generated by providing organisations with a range of highly developed alternative future worlds that at the same time make organisations step towards them and push away from them.  These scenarios may be quite unexpected, and may contain elements that are challenging, but can be shown to have been developed based on real-world data from scanning. A unique benefit of the morphological approach to scenario development is that the range of scenarios that can be developed is vast, an array of five sectors each with three factor settings can generate 243 scenarios. Whilst not all of these scenarios might be plausible and therefore would not be helpful to include, the ‘well’ of possible scenarios to develop is deep and full, meaning that a new scenario to challenge an organisation’s thinking can be generated almost instantly. 

Risk assessment and opportunity identification

Organisations can work through a structured risk and opportunity assessment process for each of the identified scenarios. Through this process, the strategies that an organisation would need to implement in order to survive or thrive in different futures can be identified and tested. Having this discussion across multiple scenarios can help the organisation to identify wise strategies that could assist them to prepare for multiple possible futures. It also enables organisations to understand that, while they can (and should) plan for a particular future, they need contingencies in place in the event that the future that emerges is different to the one they expected.   

Framework for scanning for the future as it emerges 

A key benefit of using a morphological approach is that the array can be used as an ongoing scanning and sense-makingframework. The array provides an organisation with both a set of sectors that they know they need to keep an eye on, and a set of indicators or red flags to watch for within each sector that would tell them that the future is emerging in a certain direction.The ongoing use of the morphological array can be based on both push and pull interactions between foresight practitioners and decision-makers within an organisation. Practitioners can push things to decision makers that come out of ongoing scanning structured by the array and ask critical questions of decision-makers about how they might respond to emerging issues. On the other hand, decision-makers can ask practitioners questions based on concerns, ideas or information that they have and ask for analysis on how a possible change in the environment or a strategic move by the organisation might play out across a range of sector-factor combinations on the array. As an ongoing scanning framework the array does not need to be fixed, it can be updated as new insight and evidence emerges; sectors can be swapped in or out of the array if required and the factor settings for any sector can be updated as different plausible states become more or less relevant to the organisation.

Want to know more?

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References

Bowden AR, Lane MR & Martin JH 2001, Triple Bottom Line Risk Management: Enhancing Profit, Environmental Performance, and Community Benefits, John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Voros J 2018, ‘On a morphology of contact scenario space’, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 126, pp. 126-137.