This course is built for people who own or shape where their organization or function is headed over the next 3 to 5 years, like VPs, directors, and rising leaders in strategy, innovation, product, or transformation. You're likely a fit if:

• • You're heading into a strategy refresh, planning round, or major initiative, and the assumptions behind the last plan are visibly breaking.
• • You've read trend reports and sat through offsites, and you're ready for a practice that turns interesting into decisions.
• • You have a team, a board, or a room of stakeholders to bring along, and you want a story of the future they can believe and act on.

Most foresight training either stays abstract (frameworks and vocabulary with no clear path to a decision) or reaches far into the future (20 or 50 years out), which makes for interesting thinking but doesn't tell you what to do in this planning cycle.

IDEO's approach to Futures Thinking is different. It's near-term by design, focused on the 3 to 5 year horizon where your strategic decisions live. And it's human-centered, grounded in how people's needs and behaviors are shifting, not just technology or market trends. You'll apply every exercise to a real decision from your work, so you leave with something usable, not just a framework. And you're learning from Jennifer Lo, a practicing futurist doing this same work with organizations right now.

Yes, you'll learn IDEO's own take on a strategic foresight practice. What makes IDEO's version distinct is what the scenarios are built from: specific human needs and behavior, not just market or technology factors. So the futures you map stay grounded in the people your strategy is ultimately for. Strategic foresight itself is usually taught as specialized work for research or consulting teams. Here, it's built as a skill you apply directly to your own business strategy.

Plan on about 4 to 5 hours a week for five weeks, including optional live cohort conversations. The course is designed for full calendars: every exercise runs on a real strategic decision you own, so the hours feed directly into work your planning cycle needs from you anyway.

No prior foresight training is needed. What matters is your horizon: you're accountable for, or close to, where your organization or team is headed over the next few years, and you can bring a real decision to work on.

No. This is a course about how people will live, work, and choose in the years ahead, and what your organization should do about it. Technology is one of five forces you'll scan with the STEEP framework, alongside social, economic, environmental, and political shifts. Futuring here is about anticipation and inspiration: preparing for many plausible futures rather than betting on a single prediction.

Trend reports surface interesting information, but rarely tell you what applies to you and what to do with it. This course teaches you a repeatable practice you can apply to your own decisions. You'll leave with a shared process your team can use every planning cycle. It's designed so the practice stays with you long after the cohort ends.

They're a strong pair. Designing Strategy is about setting direction and making hard choices. This course stretches that direction a few years further out, so you can pressure-test it against several plausible futures before you commit to it. If you've already taken Designing Strategy, this course is a great way to extend those capabilities into a longer time horizon.