Prioritizing the Drivers of Change

Not all the Drivers of Change you come up with will be equally important to consider in the context of the CPD. Use criteria like severity of impact and time to impact to prioritize drivers that should be considered for further exploration. Also, make a special note of drivers that seem the most uncertain. These will be especially useful when developing scenarios.

“Which drivers have the greatest influence on the system? Which are the most urgent? And which are the most uncertain?”

Framing & Refining the Drivers of Change

While we have only discussed drivers as a short, catchy phrase so far, once we have the most impactful and urgent drivers of change, we can start refining them and formatting them in a way that they are informative and thought-provoking.

A well-presented driver of change should offer some insightful information, including a description of the driver, the drivers' associated signals, and potentially some high-level implications or strategic questions.

When defining drivers, try not to be too general in naming the driver, for example, "Technology," but also not too specific, like "water-based gravity batteries." Drivers should not have an "&", try to come up with a unifying force. As far as possible, drivers should also not have a direction (such as increasing or decreasing), but you might see that the signals that constitute a certain driver are predominantly from one category of the Futures Triangle and, therefore, decide to label them as such. You will then have drivers of change that represent more of a Push of the Present, Pull of the Future, or Weight of the Past.

Validating the Drivers of Change

If time allows, it is always a good idea to share the drivers with stakeholders to ensure they resonate and are grounded in evidence. Try to ask stakeholders to check for Completeness: Do the drivers reflect a balance of Pushes, Pulls, and Weights? Do they see a specific topic missing or under-represented?