Institute of Risk Management
Overview: Despite the efforts of witches and mages throughout the ages, the future can never be accurately foretold. In our modern world, our organisations turn to risk management as the latter day shaman to divine the potential pitfalls and opportunities lurking in the mist of tomorrow.
In order to achieve such foresight, a number of tools and techniques have been developed over the years with which a skilled practitioner can attempt to reduce uncertainty. These tools include trend analysis to project the past into the future, scenario planning to understand the world given a particular set of parameters, and stress testing to better identifies the weak links within our systems.
However, it is horizon scanning which has become the buzz word of the modern organisation, and this document sets out to explain what horizon scanning means, how it fits in with the other tools in the risk manager’s toolbox, and how it can be practically employed to help organisations better prepare for the future.
In order to develop this document, the Innovation SIG held two workshops in November 2017 at the IRM Risk Leaders conference. These workshops were attended by around 80 risk professionals who provided a wealth of insight into the means by which horizon scanning is being conducted within their organisations and how the subsequent results are being communicated.
A sub group of the Innovation SIG was formed to examine and follow up on the output from the workshops, investigate the existing literature and also contribute their personal experiences of the subject in order to create the main body of this text.
