How Far Ahead Should You Look?

For every custom forecast that we do at Institute for the Future, a key question is always how far ahead the forecast should look. We want the forecast to be beyond the planning horizon for current strategy but still close enough in to be believable. In almost fifty years of forecasting, IFTF has found that ten years is usually the sweet spot. However, ten years is just too far for some of our clients, so we forecast five years (or five to ten years) into the future. But that feels too close to me. The future, in my experience, starts to come clear only at about ten years out. Sometimes looking beyond ten years will provide a view that is even clearer.

In our forecast on the future of food security, we used the definition from the 1996 World Food Summit: “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” We wanted to include food availability, food access, and food use. In Western Europe, where our client was based, we quickly realized that the topic of food security was deeply polarizing, largely because of perceptions about GMO (genetically modified) foods. Some very well intentioned people had strong beliefs about GMO, making it impossible to even have a conversation about food chemistry. Without a conversation about food chemistry, it was very difficult to do a forecast about food security and global hunger.

Our resolution on the topic of food security was to look 30 years ahead, instead of only 10, which made the conversation less polarized. Even those who view GMO as a yes/no choice in the upcoming decade could see the value of including a discussion of food chemistry if we looked 30 years ahead. If you look 30 years ahead, you will see that GMO is not a yes/no choice but a spectrum of food chemistry choices. Certainly, there will be good GMO and bad GMO, but that is not apparent today—particularly for those convinced either of its evil or its promise.

Sometimes, focusing on the future can help people move beyond the polarities of the present. The best forecasts will begin with a conversation involving foresight to insight to action, so it is very important to go far enough out to begin a great conversation and not get stuck in the polarities of the present. Fortunately, the next generation of young people seems likely—even beyond the normal open-mindedness of youth—to find it much easier to look long.