Ideation · Executive leadership team of a SaaS company · 90 min

Future Horizons: Speculative SaaS Scenarios

This method catapults the leadership team 5 years into the future by forcing them to design within extreme, speculative market constraints. By building and enacting a 'day in the life' of a future customer in a radically altered landscape, executives break free from incremental product roadmaps and discover transformative strategic opportunities. It is essential for defining true visionary pillars.

What participants gain

  • Break the cognitive anchor of current 12-month product roadmaps
  • Anticipate the impact of converging macro-trends on user behavior
  • Develop creative confidence in projecting long-term strategic leaps
  • Synthesize complex future variables into a coherent customer narrative

Materials needed

  • Pre-printed macro-trend cards (AI, regulatory, economic, social)
  • A3 storyboarding templates
  • Assorted prototyping materials (play-doh, foil, markers, magazines)
  • Timer with audible alarm
  • Props for scenario enactment

How to run Future Horizons: Speculative SaaS Scenarios, step by step

  1. Present 4 major converging macro-trends that will impact the industry by 2031.
  2. Divide the executive team into 3 cross-functional trio groups.
  3. Assign each group two extreme constraint cards to define their speculative world.
  4. Instruct groups to develop a detailed persona of a customer living in this future state.
  5. Guide teams to storyboard a specific friction point this customer experiences in 2031.
  6. Direct teams to design a radical SaaS solution that addresses this future friction.
  7. Give teams 15 minutes to build a low-fidelity physical prototype or artifact of this solution.
  8. Have each group enact their scenario and solution for the rest of the team.
  9. Facilitate a cross-scenario synthesis to identify common strategic themes that emerged.

Facilitator tips

  • Push back hard if a team's scenario sounds like something they could build next quarter.
  • Use upbeat, slightly intense background music during the building phase to drive energy.
  • Encourage playfulness; executive teams often need permission to be creative and theatrical.
  • Remind them that the goal is not to predict the future perfectly, but to stretch their strategic elasticity.
  • Capture the specific phrases and metaphors they use during enactments for later use.

Common challenges

  • Refusal to engage in 'play' - Frame the exercise strictly as 'stress-testing our strategic resilience' to appeal to analytical minds.
  • Scenarios become dystopian rather than constructive - Force a pivot by asking 'Where is the massive margin opportunity in this crisis?'.
  • Teams focus on UI rather than systemic value - Constantly ask 'What underlying infrastructure makes this possible?'.
  • Time mismanagement during storyboarding - Use a strict, visible countdown timer and announce 2-minute warnings.

Running it virtually

Utilize breakout rooms with dedicated digital storyboarding canvases. Replace physical prototyping with rapid AI image generation (e.g., Midjourney or DALL-E) to create artifacts of the future state.

Expected results

Three distinct, radically different 5-year future scenarios, complete with customer narratives and identified strategic opportunities that would allow the company to thrive in those environments.

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