14 mental barriers to integrating futures-thinking in evaluations and how to overcome them

Hunger. Violence. Fear. Poverty. Too many pressing present-day problems. Lack of time.

This list sounds familiar to development practitioners, including those who commission evaluations, reference group members, and consultants. But unfortunately, we have seen too many examples where the donors’ programming strategies are based mainly on the best-case scenarios. Recent examples include Afghanistan and Myanmar. In Afghanistan, the best-case scenario included a vision that the Taliban would not gain back power and the positive trend of women’s and girls’ rights would continue. In Myanmar, the assumption was that democratic development and economic growth would continue steadily. Unfortunately, an undesirable scenario – a coup d’état – materialised in both cases.

Suggestion: Include futures thinking in strategy development and evaluation (at least gradually). Ask the question, can we afford not to do so?

Not wanting to look stupid or be embarrassed by making incorrect predictions.

In any field, it feels uncomfortable to raise new ideas without knowing how colleagues or clients will react. Furthermore, evaluation has developed into a profession with high standards in the past few decades. Proposing something creative might feel uncomfortable.

Suggestion: Start small. For example, open the door to futures-thinking by extending the scope of the evaluation to the next five years. Then, consider only the known future events, such as the end year of critical strategies or the dates of significant events. Finally, discuss the implications of those elements in the analysis. This approach leans on the idea of “future-as-time” versus “future-as-image”. While it is not an “advanced” form of futures thinking, it is a practical start to spark discussion. See “Start here! Evaluation and foresight – your quick guide to basic concepts and terms” for more information.

Belief that futures thinking is a waste of time. That it’s unserious or unproductive. It doesn’t feel practical to me.

The field of evaluation is relatively developed methodologically and process-wise. Disruption in that culture might generate nervousness about not delivering on all the quality expectations and over-burdening the team.

Suggestion: Demonstrate examples of how global evaluation leaders are also adopting foresight methods in evaluation, for instance, IEG’s evaluation of the World Bank Group’s renewable energy portfolio. See also “Evaluation must become future-sensitive – eight examples and easy-to-implement ideas on how to do it in practice” for practical, easy-to-implement options.

Even to those who personally believe there may be value in far-future thinking, the lack of impact measurements and quantifiable results make it hard to commit their own personal or organisational time and resources to the activity.

Quality evaluation is based on evidence gathered from the past. It is triangulated and transparent. Evaluators and clients might consider that futures thinking is based on unscientific brainstorming that does not involve the same level of methodological robustness as evaluation. However, that is not the case; foresight is an established discipline. Besides, evaluation is also “only” an interpretation of the past.

Suggestion: Provide training on foresight concepts and methods. Or, recommend the children’s book Telin Tutkimusmatka (The Explorations of Teli) by Tähkäpää & Rybatzki. The book explains in a fun way what futures thinking is about. Unfortunately, it currently exists only in Finnish. For English speakers, there is an excellent affordable online course on futures thinking developed by the Institute for the Future.

The belief that I personally can’t affect the future, so why think about it.

Development practitioners might feel overwhelmed in the face of all the global challenges. On the other hand, there is evidence that some aspects of sustainable development have improved, such as extreme poverty and literacy.

Suggestion: Ask the evaluators or those who commission them to think of an evaluation they are familiar with. Discuss examples from those reports demonstrating how something has changed over the years and how different factors and actors influenced the phenomenon.

The belief the future can’t be different. Belief that the world is fixed. A lack of understanding of the past (and major changes).

Related to the above, development practitioners engage with poverty and inequality so intimately that they might lose hope that change is possible. Some might forget to take a longer view of the past and appreciate how the world has improved (or worsened). Change is constant and inevitable.

Suggestion: Remind your colleagues that we can only do our best. Listen to short audio drama recordings together about the future and discuss your thoughts, ideas, and the feelings they evoked. These pieces are available on Sitra’s website.

This is particularly true in our schools!

The retreat participants reflected this point in the context of US schools. It is probably true for the schools in most countries – and workplaces.

Suggestion: Introduce futures thinking to colleagues through games. Try, for example, the Equitable Futures Card Game developed by the Institute for the Future. Also, the Finnish Future Fund Sitra has launched a card deck for imagining desirable futures. For now, they exist only in Finnish, but Sitra often translates their materials into English, so stay tuned!

There are few, if any, specific well-known futurists in popular culture or within various intellectual communities. This is a particular problem for women and people of colour; a recent collection of essays by leading futurists consisted of essays by 17 white men.

This is an interesting point from the perspective of sustainable development, where reducing inequalities is a central paradigm.

Suggestion: Google “afrofuturism” or start from the related Wikipedia article. Alternatively, get inspired by Forbes’ “50 Leading Female Futurists”. Include experts with diverse cultural backgrounds and genders into evaluation teams and provide methodological training on foresight regardless of the level of prior exposure.

There are well-established methods that futurists use, like the development of scenarios and forecasts, but there are scarce formal opportunities to learn and practice these tools. Lack of guidance or mentorship in futures thinking.

The internet has lots of content about foresight tools. However, the amount of information might be too intimidating to start exploring without any reference points.

Suggestion: Google your favourite institution’s name together with the word “foresight” and see what comes up. You might be surprised that many development agencies are already exploring the applications of futures thinking. For example, see examples from the UNDP or ADB. I also warmly recommend the IFTF Futures Thinking Specialisation online course.

If someone is not exposed to leading-edge technologies, science, demographic shifts, market shifts and other “future forces”, the futures they imagine will not be grounded in the reality of what is likely to influence the future.

Identifying signals is a skill. Further, relatively few signals examples exist of the “marriage” of foresight and evaluation. But there are some. For example, at the European Evaluation Society Conference in June 2022, a keynote speaker, Hans Bruyninckx, the Executive Director of the European Environment Agency, raised the question of whether “evaluators should be future-oriented agenda-setters”? Similarly, the conference programme included several sessions where the integration of foresight and evaluation was discussed.

Suggestion: Follow signals from the future of your favourite topics and give examples to colleagues to make your point. Our discussion paper “Evaluation must become future-sensitive – eight examples and easy-to-implement ideas on how to do it in practice” also demonstrates practical cases. Alternatively, google the sentence “the future of [fill in the blank]” and you might find out some new thinking around your favourite topic.

In nations, organisations or cultures with rigid ideologies, they may be too close-minded to accept that dramatic changes are possible and even likely in the future.

Cultural differences are richness in development cooperation work. At times, however, finding common ground on specific topics might be challenging. It might even be difficult to reach a point where everybody is on the same page regarding concepts and terms.

Suggestion: Before launching a futures literacy workshop (or other in-depth futures thinking session) with a group of people from a very different culture to yours, prepare your approach with time and dedication. A key concept of futures literacy is the democratisation of the future; i.e. it is even morally wrong that somebody from outside comes and tells people how they should imagine the future of their society. Find local champions and train local cofacilitators who will moderate workshops and discussions. Explore the method of Futures Literacy Laboratory by UNESCO to learn more.

When some lay people think about the future, they are over-influenced by dominant science fiction ideas. They repeat ideas from Star Trek, The Matrix, Minority Report, etc.

This phenomenon is normal. When I first took a deep dive into futures thinking, I could not get the image of David Bowie out of my head.

Suggestion: Do not laugh at people who bring these images to the table but celebrate it as open-mindedness to explore futures thinking. Another option is to build on existing evaluation tools, such as the theory of change, by combining it with scenario-building. It might help participants to stick to the real-world phenomenon at hand.

The group agreed it takes at least a day or two to switch mental models from the present or near-future thinking to far-future thinking.

Point me to the development practitioner who has too much time on their hands! I dare to argue that they do not exist.

Suggestion: Sitra’s Futures Frequency Workshop modality is designed to be implemented in a minimum of three hours. Participants have reported that major aha-moments can take place in such a short time. One lesson learned is that asking people to imagine alternative futures is more effective than simply telling them what the method is about.

It is known, for example, that Alzheimer’s patients have difficulty imagining the future. The same is often true of depressed patients.

We will unlikely encounter colleagues with Alzheimer’s at work (I certainly hope not many are depressed either). However, it is helpful to be aware that futures thinking is a muscle of the mind that requires stimulation.

Suggestion: Remain humble, exercise your mental muscles and invite others to do so. Pro tip: do not tell your client that they have neurological hindrances if they don’t buy your ideas on the first go.