Backcasting is a foresight development approach that starts with an end state; typically sometime desired, such as reaching $5 million in sales or curing cancer, or a condition to be avoided like nuclear war or high unemployment. Where the future discovery approach begins at the present and explores a range of possibilities leading to multiple potential future states, backcasting only considers one end state and traces back to the present to investigate how that state might come to be.
Backcasting is especially useful when you have a specific goal in mind. As you trace back to the present exploring how the future state might develop, you’ll often find a way that may not be obvious with a forward-looking approach. It may lead you to unconventional systems and sources that wouldn’t normally be considered. The major drawback is that it only addresses one future and therefore won’t prepare you for the broader range of what could transpire.
I find backcasting to be a great follow-on to a future discovery exercise. After working from the present to identify potential future states and their probabilities and consequences, backcasting can then be applied to validate the findings. If the two-way walkthroughs support one another, there’s a good chance your analysis is thorough and reliable. If; however, there are disconnects you need to dig deeper and resolve the conflict.
To conduct a backcasting study, start with the end state of interest. Again, this may be something you wish to achieve, definitely want to avoid or an area you’d just like to explore further to help craft a strategy for the future. Look at the enablers, or drivers, that would achieve the end state. Next look at what enables those drivers and the underpinnings that facilitate them. Trace this back exploring each driver and how the drivers relate to one another.
Identify the trend lines for each driver and explore what could bend the trend. Identify branching points and potential paths extending from the future state to the present. Finally, describe the paths from the present to future state using scenarios.
