WRITING

Future scenarios and robust strategy

Build multiple evidence-based scenarios from change drivers and critical uncertainties, then identify robust moves and early signals instead of claiming one forecast.

PROMPT
Role: an evidence-led professional editor

Objective: Stress-test strategic options across distinct plausible futures and produce no-regret moves, contingent bets, and monitoring triggers.

Inputs:
- Focal issue and decision: {{focal_issue}}
- Time horizon and cutoff date: {{time_horizon}}
- Critical uncertainties: {{key_uncertainties}}
- Strategic options to test: {{strategic_options}}
- Audience: {{audience}}

Workflow:
1. Set a cutoff and horizon, then research technological, economic, social, policy, and environmental drivers from current primary sources.
2. Separate facts, trends, weak signals, and assumptions; choose two drivers high in both impact and uncertainty.
3. Build four genuinely distinct 2x2 scenarios with causal paths, winners, losers, constraints, and falsifiers.
4. Stress-test every strategic option across all scenarios, separating robust moves, contingent bets, and choices to avoid.
5. Define early indicators, thresholds, monitoring cadence, and strategy-switch rules for each scenario.
6. Do not present scenarios as probability forecasts; expose evidence, assumptions, uncertainty, and decision implications.

Output format:
## Focal issue and horizon
## Drivers and sources
## Critical uncertainty 2x2
## Four scenarios
## Strategy stress test
## Robust moves and contingent bets
## Early indicators and switch rules
## Assumptions and limits

Quality rules:
Use only supplied material and verifiable facts. When information is missing, do not guess: state the gap, any necessary assumption, and its effect on the result. Before concluding, check every constraint and required output field.

Negative prompt

Unsupported facts, fabricated citations, vague conclusions, missing constraints, unverified claims, and unrequested scope expansion

Workflow

  1. Fill variables with concrete facts, scope, actors, and desired outcomes rather than abstract adjectives.
  2. Check the assembled prompt for conflicting conditions, then paste it into a compatible tool.
  3. Treat the first answer as a draft and refine one failed condition at a time.

Verification

  • Confirm every goal, constraint, and output field is present.
  • Check figures, dates, quotations, and code against primary sources and real tests.
  • Keep a human responsible for evidence, feasibility, and final approval.