Main conference presentation
Backcasting: or how I learned to stop predicting and help my clients
Sunday March 25 2007, 5:00 - 5:45PM
This session will provide attendees with an overview and understanding the backcasting methodology, and how they can use it in their own information architecture practice.
A mashup of scenario development and social learning, backcasting is a strategy framework that allows practitioners to successfully conceptualize, scope and structure multiple future states. It also provides a framework for successfully negotiating obstacles and threats to achieving those states. Originally used in the environmental planning field, backcasting has been hacked and refined for use in web strategy discovery activities.
Two key additions to the original backcasting methodology have been incorporated to help make backcasting a practical tool for information architects. The first addition has been the incorporation of a facilitation framework to make backcasting a very interactive exercise, undertaken jointly by the design team, clients and project stakeholders. The second addition has been the use of a participatory diagramming strategy based on rich mapping and affinity clustering that makes the backcasting process visible and more accessible to the participants.
The inclusion of these elements has made backcasting a practical tool for accomplishing a range of discovery initiatives in a single, engaging session. The method allows a team of clients and stakeholders to clearly understand the relationship between a range of strategies, how to measure the success of these strategies, and how to keep in alignment with one or more strategies over the lifetime of a project or engagement.
The expected outcome for session attendees will be an understanding of how the backcasting methodology works, and how it can be used by information architects and other design team members as a tool to facilitate project discovery, web strategy definition and measurement, and social learning about the needs and culture of the client organization.
