Strategic planning and forecasting tend to use projections of past events to develop future plans. These approaches rely on historical data and assume a continuation of past business practices and environmental stability. Scenarios are used to develop plans for significant changes in the environment, personnel, or processes for which data are limited and uncertain. The premise is that the best way to prepare for radically different situations is to think through various events that could occur and consider alternatives for responding to those situations if they should happen, (von Oetinger, 2004).

Major corporations such as Shell and General Electric redefined scenario planning in the 1970s to meet specific company needs. These companies realized that traditional planning, which is based on forecasts, was becoming strategically dangerous as they moved out of the relatively stable 1950s and 1960s. Traditional planning assumes that tomorrow's business world will be quite like...