In my role as editor of Compass, the newsletter of the Association of Professional Futurists, I’ve just put together an anthology on methods, based on the contributions to Compass from APF members and collaborators over the past few years. The result is now available to download on the APF’s website. Compass is normally a membership-only newsletter, but we’ve decided to make this edition available more widely. I think it’s a pretty good collection of some of the newer and emerging methods in the field. Each article (or interview) is by (or with) someone involved in the development of each method.

This is the introduction I wrote for the Anthology:

Where practice and theory meet, innovation often follows. Practitioners resolve difficulties in practice by re-imagining what they do, and developing new approaches. But invention on its own is not enough. To stick, it needs to be reconnected to theory. The why is as important as the what.

This is the story of many of the new and emerging methods collected in this special anthology of articles published first in the APF’s members’ newsletter, Compass. It brings together in one place material on methods published in Compass by APF members and their colleagues and collaborators.

It is a strong collection. Some of these articles are the first published accounts of methods that have real value to futures practice, such as the reframing of wildcards, VERGE, or the Mānoa scenarios method.

Some are accounts of methods that have been documented elsewhere, but in a more academic context.

But all—including the interviews—are intended to be used. These accounts are designed to inspire people to try these approaches for themselves.

Here’s the list of contents:

  • Oliver Markley’s new taxonomy of wild card, revised and updated for this edition
  • Richard Lum on VERGE
  • Bill Sharpe on Three Horizons
  • Tony Hodgson on the World Game
  • Terry Grim interviewed on the Foresight Maturity Model
  • Stuart Candy on The Thing From The Future – article expanded for this edition
  • Wendy Schultz on the Manoa Scenarios method
  • Dylan Hendricks interviewed on the Systems Methodology Toolkit.

It can be downloaded here.

The image at the top of the post is courtesy of Triarchy Press, and is used with thanks.