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The Future-Focused Framework

A way for colleges to think and decide with more than one future in mind

Community colleges make decisions that outlast the conditions they were made in. A program approved this year will enroll students for a decade. A building will stand for fifty years. When conditions change slowly, experience is a fair guide. In volatile times it can mislead.

Foresight scholars call this risk tempocentrism: treating the present as the template for the future. The Future-Focused Framework is built to counter it. It draws on strategic foresight, the discipline of thinking systematically about possible futures, and on anticipatory governance, which builds that thinking into how decisions are made.

Why now

What happens when the assumptions behind a college stop holding?

Artificial intelligence is changing what students need to learn and how they learn it. It is also changing which entry-level jobs exist. Many of the assumptions behind today’s programs, schedules and credentials were formed before these changes began.

Other shifts are arriving at the same time: fewer high school graduates in many states, falling trust in public institutions and new patterns of work. Any one of them would test a college. Together they call for a different relationship with the future.

Seven moves

The framework, move by move

1  ·  Notice

What is beginning to change?

The framework starts with signals, the early signs of change that are easy to miss. Trustees, leaders, faculty and staff each scan from their own vantage point. Faculty see their fields changing. Trustees see the region as people who live and work in it. Scanning includes the future of the industries the college’s programs serve.

ExampleA regional hospital system pilots AI-assisted charting. If that spreads, what will a medical assistant program need to teach in ten years?

2  ·  Question

What are we assuming will stay true?

Every plan rests on assumptions about the future. Most are never stated. Naming them makes them something a group can examine and test against what it is seeing.

ExampleA new facility proposal assumes most students will want to attend in person four days a week. Is that still a safe assumption for 2035?

3  ·  Understand

What forces are driving the change?

Drivers are the large forces behind many signals at once. They include demographics, technology, the economy, politics and the environment. Seeing them together shows a board what it is up against. Most boards map them once a year at a retreat.

ExampleIn many states the number of high school graduates is expected to decline after the mid-2020s. That shift touches enrollment, budgets, programs and staffing at the same time.

4  ·  Imagine

What futures are plausible?

Scenarios describe several futures that could unfold. They are used because no one knows which future will arrive. A decision that only works in one future is a bet, and the board should know when it is making one.

One scenario set the Lab uses crosses two uncertainties: the pace of AI development and the value of credentials. The four futures that result give a board four places to test a decision before it commits.

ExampleWould this program still make sense if AI moved quickly and employers stopped caring about degrees?

5  ·  Stance

How should we commit, given more than one future?

A stance names how the college will act under uncertainty. The president proposes a stance and the board approves it.

  • Bet. Commit to the future the college judges most likely.
  • Hedge. Protect against a future the college hopes to avoid.
  • Robust. Choose an action that works across every scenario.
  • Core and satellite. Hold the core steady and run small experiments at the edges.

6  ·  Horizons

What must we sustain, what must we build, and how do we get there?

The Three Horizons model separates the work of today (Horizon 1) from the future the college is moving toward (Horizon 3). Horizon 2 is the transition between them, where old and new run side by side.

Every major board proposal describes its Horizon 3: where things seem to be heading and how the proposal fits.

ExampleHorizon 1 is the current welding program. Horizon 3 is a regional manufacturing base that relies on automation. Horizon 2 is the robotics module added this year while the core program continues.

7  ·  Indicators

What would tell us we were wrong?

Indicators are the evidence a college agrees to watch once it has decided. Each one carries a return trigger: a point at which the board revisits the decision. Wildcards are less likely events with large effects, such as the loss of a major regional employer. Naming them in advance shortens the time it takes to respond.

ExampleIf enrollment in the new program falls below 60 percent of projection for two terms, the board reviews the decision.

In practice

How colleges use it

The framework runs at different altitudes across a college. The board and the leadership team work from the same signals, assumptions and scenarios. Neither changes roles. The president still leads operations and the board still governs. A shared set of futures gives the whole college a common language for change.

Definitions of its terms are on the Concepts page.

At the annual retreat

  • Make sense of the signals gathered over the year
  • Surface the assumptions the board holds and the forces behind them
  • Build or revisit scenarios
  • Discuss the fundamental questions the year has raised
  • Set a stance and horizons for the year ahead

At board meetings

  • Share signals trustees are seeing in the community
  • Make visible the assumptions behind each major decision
  • Test proposals against the scenarios and the stance
  • Decide and act in the present
  • Watch the indicators and revisit decisions when a trigger is reached

With the leadership team

  • Scan regularly and share what is found
  • State the assumptions behind each proposal
  • Assess options against the scenarios
  • Recommend actions and a stance to the board
  • Track indicators and adjust as conditions change

Across the college

  • Scan for change in each program’s field and industry
  • Name the assumptions behind a program review or new curriculum
  • Test program and service designs against the scenarios
  • Use the horizons to plan the move from today’s offerings
  • Agree on indicators that will prompt a second look