People perceive the world through their mental models of how things work. They use these models to make decisions. As the Decision Making Map showed, there are many limitations inherent in making decisions from within our mental models. One of the more difficult challenges to decision making is to understand the future – our mental models generally are based on our experiences and learnings from them, yet these are all historical.

How do we shift how we think about the world into a new realm of possibilities, that we have not even lived through yet? This is what the business press is calling paradigm shifting.

A particularly strong tool for helping people break down paradigms and getting out of the box is scenario planning. By dealing with the boundaries of the plausible future, scenario planning helps us to identify and recognize key trends and events which might indicate a departure from the "probable" future.

Scenario planning also helps us to identify problems and concerns which might emerge in such a departure. Exploring the potential impact of broad ranges of trends and events upon the area of concern encourages richer understanding and a richer mental model. In addition, the contemplation of extreme conditions is frequently quite effective in escaping paradigm paralysis.

Scenario planning has historically functioned more as an event than as a mainstream practice, i.e., teams participated in a scenario planning event to explore alternatives and to learn more about their business. In some cases the insights from the scenario process are formally documented and shared across the organization. In many cases the key insights are personal, and often subconscious.

One problem with conventional scenario planning is that there is no consistent platform for evaluating the problem areas or issues as scenarios change, requiring that each case be evaluated individually from scratch. The merger of system dynamics modeling with scenarios offers a more productive environment for scenario planning by structuring the scenario planning process and by providing a mechanism for quickly evaluating the impact of new scenarios on the problem of interest.