DEPUTIES and business leaders have been preparing for the future. More than 30 representatives of government and commerce spent the last three days in a scenario-planning exercise discussing the socio-economic options for the island’s future.
The exercise aimed to help the island over the next five years to maintain the average level of economic growth seen over the past decade.
‘This whole scenario process is about trying to establish what we should be doing today in an uncertain future to strengthen Guernsey’s position,’ said Commerce and Employment minister Stuart Falla.
‘You can’t predict the future but what you can do is learn about a number of scenarios that may happen.’
The exercise was a joint initiative between the fiscal and economic steering group and the Commerce and Employment Department.
It was part-sponsored by the Guernsey office of Generali. Senior Genarali principal Mel Carvill used scenario planning as part of his presentation at the 2006 Institute of Directors conference.
‘When you look at the future there are some existing forces that we know about already and we can predict, like demographics and globalisation, but there are lots of things we don’t know about,’ said Mr Carvill.
‘If we were doing this 25 years ago, it would have been very difficult to think of BlackBerrys and the internet, but by at least preparing for different scenarios we can be better placed.
‘The purpose of scenario planning is not to pinpoint future events but to highlight large-scale forces that push the future in different directions.
‘It’s about making these forces visible so as to help us make better decisions today.’
Facilitator Alain Wouters of Whole Systems, a company based in Brussels in Belgium was also at the workshop adding his valued experience.
He was part of Shell’s research and testing team in the late 1980s and early 1990s as well as of the fuel giant’s successful scenario planning group based in London from 1992 to 1994.
‘We do scenario planning with a passion. It’s not the type of thing I allow to happen with people just going through the motions.’
The output from the scenario process will be used to assist in developing, promoting and implementing States economic policies.
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