GraSPP-DP-E-15-001
Masahiro Kakuwa
March 2015
・Visiting Professor, Graduate
School of Public Policy
The University of Tokyo,
7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
・Chief Economist, Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K.
e-mail: Masahiro.Kakuwa@showa-shell.co.jp
GraSPP Discussion Papers can be downloaded without charge from:
http://www.pp.u-tokyo.ac.jp/
Scenario projects in Japanese government:
Twenty years of experience, five tales from the front line
1
Scenario projects in Japanese government:
Twenty years of experience, five tales from the front line
Masahiro Kakuwa
1
Abstract: How does scenario planning in government differ from
scenario planning in the corporate world? This paper considers five
projects done in Japan – four from the public sector, one from the
private sector – and finds that when comparing to people in the private
business, public servants have cognitive and institutional constraints on
their thinking. This makes it hard for them to contemplate multiple,
‘untidy’ futures, and imagine the possibility of policy failure: skills
which are essential for successful scenario projects. The possible
solution may be to shake them out of their thinking with ‘derailment’ –
allowing them to discuss the future as they would like to come about,
and then exploring ways in which that desired scenario might not occur.
The other observation is that, although there has been growing demand
from Japanese public sector organisation of scenario type brainstorming
opportunities, for public servants, these are preferred as an isolated
event rather than a routinely institutionalised process in the policy
making and policy execution. They enjoy the scenario planning only as
a refreshing event and as a chance to explore and learn new things.
1. Introduction
This paper is an attempt at disciplined reflection, by a scenario practitioner, on his
twenty years’ experience in the field. In Japan, I work as a designer of study
processes, a facilitator in workshops, and an editor/writer of scenario reports. I am
writing this for the experts in scenario planning practices, in the hope that I can share
my working experience with them, and become more of a resource to the scenario
planning community outside Japan.
My reflection and thought will focus largely on projects for the Japanese public sector
– especially since there is a growing need for scenario work in government. Scenario
planners are summoned once there is an obvious break from the past, and here in
Japan, now is such a time! However, scenario practitioners have to react with caution
to this new enthusiasm. Consider the following scenario, no doubt taking place across
Japan as this is written.
A government organisation asks a scenario planner to conduct a project, and dozens
of bureaucrats come and join scenario workshops. Then, the planner gradually
notices that a ‘scenario-type’ discussion is an unpleasant experience for the
participants. Efforts to dig up big issues in future do not necessarily galvanize them.
1
Visiting Professor, The University of Tokyo, also Chief Economist, Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K.
2
This is not a question of the facilitator’s skill, but rather that their skills and practices
originated in the private sector and need refinement for their new audience. This is a
tale I know well.
My entrée into the scenario planning world was accidental. In 1992, my Japanese
employer Showa Shell decided to send me to the scenario planning team in London,
the UK headquarters of the Shell Group. Up until then I had been a company oil
trader, a hardworking, high tension job, and the company seemed to expect me to
develop another side of myself in London. I became a scenario planner in Europe. I
returned to Japan in 1995, and ever since then scenario activities have always been
part of my job. So that the methodology and skill I have been using at scenario
projects are basically “Shell style”. There is a distinctive characteristic in scenario
project conducted by the Shell style, which are well captured by R.D.Shell’s
“Scenarios: An Explorer’s Guide, 2003”. [Shell International Ltd, 2003], and by Kees
van der Heijden’s “Scenarios : The art of strategic conversation” [van der Heijden,
1996]. Over and above, Wilkinson and Kupers [Wilkinson, 2014] successfully
reviewed this Shell-style mainly in the historical perspective. In this book many
precious insights are accrued from interviews of Shell scenario planners in these
almost fifty years. I myself have modified some of the Shell style, tailored to Japan’s
local context, but by and large been with the development of the Shell-style process
and product. Interestingly, however, much of my work has been for Japanese
government, and has allowed me to consider in great depth the unique challenges of
working with governments.
In the following, I will reflect on several scenario projects I have undertaken. Some
will be successes, and others will be failures – the latter being much more memorable
for me because the unsatisfactory outcome was often caused by my own mistakes,
which I have learned from. Then, I will generalise my experience and discuss by
referring to some of academic works related to scenario planning and Japanese public
policy making process. However, I don’t wish to discuss the analytical part fat and
dull.
Some readers may wish to skip the in-depth description of scenario projects, the five
examples of which I have chosen to analyse, and jump straight to the discussion and
conclusions: however, I hope that practitioners will also find much of interest in my
tales of scenario projects in Japan.
Acknowledgement
I appreciate the helpful comments on the drafts of this paper, including those from Dr
Michael D. Rogers, Dr Tatsujiro Suzuki and Dr Kyoko Ohta.
2. Five tales: scenario projects in Japan
This paper is primarily meant to share my professional experiences with the peer
scenario planning practitioners. To begin this consideration of scenario planning in
Japanese government, let me start with a tale of a project in the private sector.