Review of futures resources...

in the New Zealand governmental sector. We began in June 2008 by bringing together current futures work in the New Zealand State Sector. The New Zealand State Services Commission supported FutureMakers to carry out this meta-analysis. Their Futures Forum Steering Group helped to identify relevant material. We analysed this material to look for convergences, divergences and gaps in relation to Social, Technological Economic, Environmental and Political trends (STEEP) and also identified the range of scenario work included in the material. The focus on resources of the New Zealand public domain is a consequence of budget constraints. However, we have compared our findings with a recent high quality international meta-analysis of trends and drivers, the “Strategic Futures Thinking: meta-analysis of published material on Drivers and Trends” by the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (2001). The high-level analysis presented here is the result of this initial phase of the FutureMakers project. Greg Claridge (Bakker Maniparthy Claridge Ltd.) and Lance Beath (Victoria University) have carried out this review of the resources submitted by the NZ state sector and developed the STEEP cuts. They developed the framework by which the various reports were coded and analysed. When reading the report you might want to ask yourself the following questions: • What does the high level of convergence reflected in the material mean? • What are the reasons for apparent gaps in the resources analysed? We think that much of the recent New Zealand futures work has the potential to help us with identifying joined-up responses. By gathering the material into a coherent body of work and making it available as a resource for thoughtful conversation we hope to provide a first step into this territory. Download the full document here Meta Analysis final Oct 2008.pdf