Scenario Planning in a Virtual World

Consortium for Scenario Planning | 2021

Scenario planning is used in urban planning projects because of its usefulness for decision making in times of uncertainty. Community engagement for scenario planning, however, can be challenging because of its complexity. In particular, virtual or remote engagement is a challenge and has many barriers to participation, yet in our post-pandemic world, engagement is becoming increasingly virtual.

Cascadia Partners received a grant from the Consortium for Scenario Planning to create a report on techniques and tools that lead to more equitable outcomes in scenario planning,in an increasingly virtual world. The Cascadia Partners team created a report and guide that provides data, case studies, and methods to help scenario planning practitioners better understand how to engage communities in scenario planning processes in virtual or remote settings. The guide included a literature review of best practices, interviews, a review of scenario planning tools used for remote engagement, and the development of a “hard-to-reach” index, which helps planners identify priority communities for outreach.