Information gathering can be a long,even tedious, process.But it’s important. Anticipating the need for solid information about how their organization’s value drivers are developing,many scenario planners collect detailed trend information on a permanent basis,establishing libraries and databases (or at least large manila folders) devoted to the developments they consider the most important for their future. Ongoing data gathering and evaluation obviates the need to run around in a mad rush trying to find useful information shortly before a scenario planning exercise gets under way,but it obviously requires time and resources.