ONLINE COURSE
Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making
Build strategy for what comes next
Many of the ways leaders have been trained to think and plan are no longer sufficient in today’s rapidly evolving business environment.
Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making is a six-week strategic thinking course from Stanford Online designed to help business leaders make informed decisions, navigate uncertainty, and develop strategies for multiple futures.
Led by Lisa Kay Solomon at the Stanford d.school, this course combines scenario planning, strategic thinking, and design-led approaches to help you move from reactive problem solving to future-focused strategy development.
How futures thinking works
Futures thinking helps leaders move from uncertainty to confident decision-making by exploring multiple possible futures and shaping strategic direction.
Key takeaways
During this course, you will learn to:
Anticipate change through horizon scanning and trend analysis.
Imagine multiple futures with scenarios, world-building, and storytelling.
Make the future concrete through the use of artifacts.
Develop a futures narrative to recruit team members and advocates.
Embed strategic foresight into organizational planning and culture.
Apply futures thinking to real-world decisions
By the end of this program, you will be able to:
Make more informed strategic decisions in a complex business environment
Identify emerging signals and assess their impact on your business strategy
Apply scenario planning to evaluate multiple future outcomes
Develop future-focused strategies aligned to long-term business goals
Strengthen your ability to lead with confidence amid uncertainty and change
Who is this online course for?
Leaders and executives seeking to enhance their strategic foresight capabilities and strengthen long-term decision-making in a dynamic business environment
Managers and decision-makers looking for proactive, adaptive approaches to strategic management in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments
Professionals aiming to build anticipatory leadership skills to identify emerging opportunities and embrace complexity
Individuals seeking to develop resilience, curiosity and adaptability in the face of rapid change and disruption
Those in roles focused on strategy development, long-term planning, or innovation management who want to move beyond traditional methods and develop future- focused practices
Course outline
Recognize why futures thinking is emerging as a critical strategic capacity for navigating change, uncertainty, and complexity.
Identify how futures thinking helps leaders engage more effectively with volatility and ambiguity.
Understand the core elements of long-term thinking.
Understand how the "official futures" developed by organizations can be expanded to incorporate multiple perspectives and futures.
Apply the futures cone framework to your own area of work.
Distinguish between internal and external forces impacting your organization and shaping outcomes.
Apply the STEEP model to conduct horizon scanning and trend identification.
Use tools like the futures wheel to explore ripple effects of external forces.
Use storytelling and narrative as tools to communicate compelling futures.
Explore world-building, science fiction, and experiential futures as strategic tools.
Examine how imagination drives strategy and inspires organizational innovation.
Understand the history and practice of scenario planning as a foresight tool.
Apply visual frameworks such as the rapid 2x2 to test critical uncertainties.
Develop and share scenarios that prepare organizations for the unknown.
Embed foresight practices into organizational planning and culture.
Strengthen teams and processes with futures-oriented frameworks.
Design strategic conversations that turn foresight into sustained impact.
A hands-on, applied learning experience
Through weekly live sessions and applied exercises, you’ll learn to identify signals of change, develop future scenarios, and translate insights into actionable strategies.
Rooted in the approach of the Stanford d.school, this course is experiential and project-based, designed to help you apply futures thinking in real-world contexts. Each module includes a guided Playbook that helps you apply futures thinking directly to your own business goals.
Through reflection, applied exercises, and capstone-focused prompts, you will progressively build a body of work that feeds into your final strategy, ensuring your learning translates into real-world impact.
Capstone project
This course includes a futures-focused capstone project where you will apply scenario planning, horizon scanning, big-picture thinking and world-building to a strategic challenge from your own organization or sector.
Rather than working on hypothetical case studies, you will build a future-informed perspective grounded in your real business context and competitive landscape, exploring multiple possible futures, testing assumptions, and identifying the signals that matter most.
By the end of the program, you will have translated foresight into a clear, actionable strategic direction, equipping you to make more confident decisions in an uncertain business environment.
Course walkthrough
Live faculty sessions for real-time engagement
Self-paced learning with a manageable commitment of 4–6 hours per week
Assignments to apply futures tools to your own organization
Case studies and interviews with experts from Stanford’s d.school
Interactive office hours, hands-on exercises, and a futures-focused capstone project that bring your learning to life
Certificate of Achievement from Stanford Online
Featured course elements
Practice with frameworks like the Futures Cone, STEEP scanning, and scenario planning to anticipate signals of change and expand your strategic horizon.
Use narrative techniques, world-building, and experiential futures to translate imagination into compelling, actionable strategies.
Develop futures artifacts that help translate abstract ideas into tangible representations, enabling you to test assumptions and explore potential outcomes.
Industry insights
78%
2.5x
65%
Instructor
Futurist in Residence and Lecturer, Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, Stanford University
Lisa Kay Solomon is a Futurist in Residence and Lecturer at Stanford's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (known informally as the Stanford d.school), where she leads futures ...
Certificate of Achievement from Stanford Online
All learners who successfully complete the course will be awarded a Stanford Online Certificate of Achievement. This certificate serves as a testament to your dedication and expertise in the subject matter. The Certificate of Achievement for an individual course will be issued in a digital badge format, allowing you to share your accomplishments with your network, verify your credentials to employers, and communicate the scope of your acquired expertise. In addition, you will earn 4 Continuing Education Units.
FAQs
Learning with Stanford Online gives you access to live faculty-led sessions, interactive exercises, and practical assignments you can apply directly to your professional context. You’ll also engage with peers from diverse industries, enhancing collaboration and perspective.
Yes. All participants who successfully complete the Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making course will be awarded a Stanford Online Certificate of Achievement delivered in a digital badge format and verified on the blockchain, along with Continuing Education Units (CEUs). This credential validates your mastery of futures thinking and its application to organizational strategy.
No prior technical background is required. The course is designed for leaders, managers, and professionals across industries who want to strengthen foresight and adaptive planning skills.
This course is ideal for executives, strategists, innovation managers, and decision-makers who want to move beyond short-term fixes, embrace complexity, and design proactive strategies to guide their organizations in uncertain environments. If you have any doubts or specific questions about whether this course is right for you, schedule a call with a program advisor who can help.
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