Let's talk about the future

Attendees learned how new trends and emerging issues could affect quality professionals in the future, and discussed the effectiveness of their organisations’ scenario planning method.

The event opened with a presentation from Huw Williams, Principal at SAMI Consulting, who talked about future megatrends, such as climate change, economic paradigm shifts and changing demographics. This was followed with an opportunity for attendees to discuss how the trends affect their work and how to transform the risks into opportunities for their organisations.

As forecasting is not an exact science, Williams talked about the importance of scenario planning. “If you predict and plan for different scenarios, when something happens you are prepared, and your organisation has a contingency plan,” he said.  

Participants were then encouraged to consider the different quality management issues that can arise from an evolution, a transformation, an exploitation or a fragmentation scenario.

Cathy Dunn, Principal at SAMI Consulting, talked about the Three Horizons framework. A tool to consider and organise the interplay of trends and emerging changes that can affect an organisation. This presentation proved popular with the audience who was particularly interested in data technology and how it impacts their way of working.

Following the event, attendee Jamie Sanderson, Supplier Development Leader at Spirax Sarco, told Quality World that the event helped enhance his awareness and understanding of current megatrends that need to be risk assessed. He said the discussion was important for his organisation’s quality management system’s ongoing development, as it focused on robust contingency plans developed to protect businesses.

The event also gave participants an insight on how to “plan for potential future scenarios and anticipate potential impacts on our quality communities that will have to manage those scenarios,” Sanderson added.

Vincent Desmond, CQI’s CEO, who was also present, said: “In addition to the teach-in from the SAMI experts on the process of scenario planning, this event allowed the group to consider possible futures and the impact on the quality profession. The impact of technology on the profession was universally agreed to be significant and uncertain, and underlined the need for this topic to be brought up to the top of the CPD (continuous professional development) agenda.”

Desmond added that “CQI Corporate Connect events bring the insights and expertise from CQI’s valued partners to our Corporate Partner community.”