Terminology for Futurist Thinking

In honor of World Future Day, which is celebrated annually worldwide on March 1st, we have decided to share our favorite foresight terms all month long to raise awareness of futurist thinking and to share our approach to planning for success in the long-term future.

Our first term is “Drivers of Change.”

The phrase “drivers of change” is frequently used in strategic planning and foresight projects. Drivers are categorical factors whose condition may create changes elsewhere in a system.  For example, the condition of the national economy may drive changes in the consumption of goods, levels of investment, or employment levels.

People often refer to trends, which are themselves patterns of change, as drivers of change. An example of this is demographic trends, such as the rising global population, which can drive or generate further change, such as drains in resources. The interconnected character of different elements in a system can make it difficult to establish direct cause-and-effect relationships between elements, or to recognize that there are often many determinants of change, rather than a single factor.

Stay tuned! We will be posting a new term every week for the month of March.

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