The author recommended that 30 to 64 stakeholders, with one-third coming from outside the system or organization, would be involved. The process begins with the participants telling stories about their shard past, knowing that there will be inconsistencies and contradictory recollections of that past. Even those from outside the organization will have shared information because of country history, interaction with similar organizations, common values and so on. Participants then explore the present and global trends affecting that present. This information is often recorded on a large sheet of paper with subsequent prioritizing of the trends also noted. To imagine the organization’s future typically 5,10, and/or 20 years in the future, diverse subgroups formed by their interests in a specific theme, get together to create concrete verbal images of that future. Each subgroup also describes the barriers they would have had to overcome to get to the future they envision. All participants in the future search then create a list of common futures of what they agree on, possible projects to get there and unresolved differences. Participants then decide on what specific project each participant wants to work on the same project to determine next steps.
The benefit of this approach is that the facilitator has no specific outcome in mind, nor is there any preconceived sense of problems, solutions, projects and so on. Everything that emerges from the exercise resides with the participants with the facilitators only overseeing the process.