The Future, Backwards: a futures-based innovation tool for corporate strategy

6 min readApr 12, 2023

A time-travel machine contemplated by a human being — AI-generated image by the author.

“The Future, Backwards” is a backcasting tool used to imagine a reverse path from a desired future state as a way to inform strategies for moving forward. It demands creative thinking to explore long-term futures, helping us define, strategize, and rehearse possibilities to achieving ambitious change.

As it considers both the best and worst possible scenarios for a given opportunity, it allows us to plan backwards from where we want to end up rather than from the present day.

In the world of business, planning for the future is essential. However, conventional planning techniques (mostly, chronological) may limit one’s perspective by considering only current resources and abilities. In contrast, the “Future, Backwards” a technique developed by Cognitive Edge, offers a fresh approach by allowing us to imagine a reverse path from a desired future state, providing innovative paths that break with the premises of the present. By exploring both the best and worst possible scenarios for a given opportunity, we can plan backwards from where we want to end up rather than from the present day.

This technique works particularly well when planning for a goal is complex and/or there are many steps that separate it from the present moment. Below, I share five simple steps to put this tool into practice:

5 Steps to Rethink the Future

Scene from the movie “Back to the Future” (1985): Doc. Brown & Marty McFly.

1. Set your goals

Where do you or your organization want to go?

Define a clear goal, common to all participants. At this point, do not limit yourself to what is currently feasible. Initiatives such as Calico and Google Brain have been working on combining biotechnology and computer science to create sequences of “neurons,” in order to build artificial brains capable of taking machine intelligence to a whole new level.

There is currently no technology or knowledge capable of achieving this objective, yet it is a disruptive goal around which collaborators can engage.

2. Organize your team

In this method, an ideal team consists of people from different areas (who have at least some agency on the goal proposed in step 1) and should have 6 to 10 participants. Thus, it is possible to balance diversity and quantity of ideas, without turning the sessions into a long theoretical debate.

Additionally, you can choose to carry it out with a single team or with some parallel groups, but focused on the same goal. In this case, the results of each team can be compared later for a broader view of futures perception within the company.

Please note that even though those sessions could be conducted separately, it is important that the members of the groups who have already participated do not comment on the process or results with the others who haven’t. Otherwise, they might induce people to solutions that have been discussed, potentially reducing innovative ideas.

3. Ideation

3.1. Place your goal on a board or wall: write it on a paper card, and describe what does it mean. Place it on the rightmost part of the board, so everyone can see it.

The future, backwards board, step 3.1. Illustration by the author.

3.2. Build a path from the end (goal) to the beginning (present moment): distribute cards or sticky notes of a different color to all participants and ask them to write down the steps necessary to achieve the objective, always thinking retroactively.

At this point, the facilitator should prompt the group about the sequence of activities and the pace between them, that is, if the effort involved in each step is similar.

The future, backwards board, step 3.2. Illustration by the author.

3.3. Review: at the end of the first iteration, the group should review the path drawn and make any necessary adjustments. Disagreements among participants should be debated. If a consensus cannot be reached, use a different colored sticky note to indicate divergencies.

3.4. Highlight critical stages: critical stages carry great impact on the goal, whether due to risk, complexity, dependence on external factors, or other things. They must be pointed out.

The future, backwards board, step 3.4. Illustration by the author.

4. Excellence and Failure Simulations

For this second iteration, let’s do an exercise of extrapolation of desired futures: think about how it could be achieved with excellence, and create a card or sticky note with this variation, placing it just above the original goal. Then do the same, but considering a failure approach, indicating such scenario with another color and positioning it just below the original goal:

The future, backwards board, step 4. Illustration by the author.

To identify the turning points where things could go either better or worse, you can analyze the critical steps previously identified and the potential risks and opportunities associated with each one of them. Then, create two new paths from each critical step, one that leads to success and another that leads to failure.

For example, let’s say one of the critical steps is launching a new product. The success path could include steps like market research to ensure the product meets customer needs, a strong marketing campaign to build awareness and demand, and effective sales strategies to generate revenue. On the other hand, the failure path could include issues like poor product design, lack of market demand, or ineffective marketing efforts.

Once you have identified these paths, you can revise your original roadmap to incorporate the new steps and potential outcomes. This process can help you anticipate challenges and proactively plan for success.

Your diagram should look something like this now:

The future, backwards board, step 4 continued. Illustration by the author.

5. Refine the diagram for possible improvements

Now you will have a map with creative, unorthodox, and/or previously unthought-of ways to achieve a goal. This does not mean that they need to be followed strictly from end to end. It is a simulation intended to foster ideas that deviate from the commonplace.

Moreover, the “Future, Backwards” tool is another way of working with innovation processes, changing perspectives of how to build futures— both for the company and for your own personal planning.

Throughout this exercise, it will also be possible to observe expectations and fears that present patterns may be projecting onto the future, and support you to make the necessary adjustments to your strategy.

According to research conducted at the University of Beijing (Park, 2017), this technique inspires greater motivation in teams, increasing expectations for final objectives and contributing to performance during execution. The author concludes:

“(…) the way people plan is as important as whether or not they plan.