GoogleIn mid-2020, as the team focused exclusively on short-term COVID response questions by asking users how they thought their lives would change, I recognized a critical gap: there was no clear strategy for anticipating unknowns or thinking longer-term about evolving user needs. I saw an opportunity to help leadership prepare to navigate entirely unknown possible futures rather than relying solely on immediate user feedback.
I designed and facilitated a comprehensive scenario planning exercise, beginning with research into external trends and signals. I created a framework based on two key axes—uncertainty and impact—then led a series of workshops where cross-functional teams built out four distinct future scenarios. Through facilitated brainstorming sessions, we identified product opportunities within each possible future, then synthesized these insights to pinpoint "no-regrets" investments that would deliver value across the majority of scenarios. I also recommended specific investments in foresight and user intelligence capabilities to strengthen the organization's ability to anticipate future situations.
The work convened crucial conversations with three VPs and their teams about the post-COVID product roadmap. While executives were initially skeptical due to the lack of traditional user data backing the scenarios, cross-functional team members found the exercise clarifying and began referencing the scenarios in their own planning. Though leadership opted not to pursue the recommendations at the time, key themes I predicted in June 2020—persistent supply chain issues for consumer goods, ongoing social fracturing and mistrust of institutions, and persistent gaps in Google's understanding of user sentiment—remained crucial issues two years later in June 2022. The accuracy of these predictions led to me being invited to apply the same scenario planning approach to customer-facing teams and corporate risk management.
