Future Happens Here

Project Overview

Future Happens Here is an analog facilitation toolkit and game designed to help stakeholders set aside existing agendas and imagine new criteria for the future. It brings systems thinking and futures-oriented planning into a collaborative, low-barrier format accessible to a wide range of players.

Project Description & Outcomes

The game simulates a collaborative stakeholder engagement process using a card-collecting mechanic that leads to a group writing exercise. Players are invited to suspend existing assumptions, biases, and roles to imagine alternative futures together. The game builds skills in future-oriented planning, lateral thinking, and systems change — making tools that were previously only available to academics or professionals accessible to a much broader audience.

Purpose

We need to give people tools to think differently, to build relationships and to gain empathy while developing strategies for the future. There isn’t an easy, out of the box tool for facilitators to guide a conversation about the future without everyone pushing their own perspectives and ideas.

Solution

Future Happens Here is a game designed to help facilitate conversations about systems thinking and designing the future. The game simulates a collaborative stakeholder engagement process. The game is simple. At its core, it is a card collecting game that leads to a collaborative writing exercise. The players are invited to suspend their existing assumptions, biases and roles to imagine alternative futures. The game builds skills in future-oriented planning, lateral thinking and systems change.

Impact

A new generation of systems thinking means potential for new solutions to old problems. Learning skills like future-oriented planning, lateral thinking and systems change should accessible. Bringing these skills to players through a game is low barrier and risk free way to introduce mindsets and tools that have, up until now, been primarily available to academics, post-secondary students or professionals.

Do you want to play this game with your team? Contact us.