• Doyle and Straus' classic book on meeting facilitation, How to Make Meetings Work, and its recent sequel, How to Make Collaboration Work;
• Interaction Associates, the facilitation training and consulting organization founded by David Straus, which has a page devoted to "current tips" for group process;
• Grove Consultants International, the graphic facilitation and team-building consulting organization founded by David Sibbet, which uses the process theory of Arthur M. Young;
• Edward deBono's Six Thinking Hats,
  • summarized by Vincent Bernhardt, and
  • also summarized by Margaret Ann Wilkinson;
• Harrison Owen's "Open Space" approach, which might be described as the self-organizing complexity strategy for creating productive meetings; here is a collection of his essays.

Infinity as Process:
The following participatory tools are useful in composing foresight workshops for a wide variety of clients.

Identifying and exploring change:

• from issues to impacts: an overview of scanning and futures wheels.
• scanning strategies: see my essay on environmental scanning.
• structuring a scan journal;
• holistic scanning:
  • systems science basics: feedback loops;
  • pattern identification

   

Exploring alternative possible futures via extant images and scenarios -- "incasting:"

• Classic Incasting -- the generic form of the exercise, as developed at the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies
• EPA Incasting -- the exercise as developed for the EPA's Community Risk Assessment program (Schultz and Jones).
• NELD Incasting -- scenarios and instructions used for the North Eastern Leadership Development Program (Schultz and Bowman).
• Libraries -- scenarios and instructions developed for the Special Libraries Association (Schultz and Fletcher).
• Public Health -- scenarios and instructions developed for the National Public Health Leadership Development Network.
• Pacific Islands Incasting: Coconut Futures -- scenarios and example output developed for the Pacific Coastal Zone Management Conference, 1991, for the Center for Development Studies (University of Hawaii at Manoa), Dr. Michael Hamnett, Director, and the Pacific Basin Development Council.

Building images of alternative possible futures, or scenarios:

• Scenario Building: Maximizing Difference [the Manoa/Infinite Futures approach]
  • The Future of Hawaii, scenarios created by the "Maximizing Difference" process.
• Scenario Building: Maximizing Focus [the Schwartz approach]
• Scenario Building: Maximizing Depth [the de Vries approach]
• Scenario Building: Maximizing Development [the Harman Fan]
  • The Future of the University, scenarios created by the Harman Fan [powerpoint presentation; view in "slideshow" mode to take advantage of "active," clickable regions; thanks to Ruud van der Helm].

Scenarios:

• "Time Hack," Christian Crews, as assignment for FUTR 5131.

Visualizing -- past, future, and preferred:

• Experiencing the Needs of Future Generations [visualization exercise by O.W. Markley]
• Visualizing a Preferred Future ("visioning"): facilitator's visualization script.
• Group Vision Exercise