Scenarios are stories about the future.  Scenario planning encourages an organization to challenge deeply held assumptions and to chart a clear path forward through difficult and uncertain times.  Scenario thinking allows an organization to engage around what it does not know and/or cannot control, as well as external forces that define the environment in which it must operate. These unknown forces that shape an entity’s external environment are called “critical uncertainties” and form the foundation on which scenarios are created. In scenario thinking, an organization does not choose one scenario and plan toward it, but plans around a set of scenarios that elevate the most critical uncertainties that organization needs to address.  The future will never be exactly as described in any one scenario but will be made up of components of all the scenarios that are created. By planning around the full set of scenarios, the strategies identified are both robust (meaning they work across the full set of uncertainties) and adaptive to the dynamic and changing environment in which the organization operates.