Strategic planning aims at preparing organizations to look at the future and develop strategic positions to optimally exploit future opportunities. This process suffers serious limitations in the current hyper-competitive environment where the future is uncertain and ambiguous. Scenario planning is a useful tool that enables managers to `rehearse the future', remove mental blocks and orthodoxies, be prepared to manage uncertainty and make strategic planning sharper and focused.

The traditional approach to strategic planning has viewed the process as a series of planned steps in sequence - statement of organizational vision, external analysis of environment, internal analysis of strengths and weaknesses, and strategic choice. The traditional and prescriptive approach to strategic planning is formal, codified and simple to practice - but suffers from serious limitations in a dynamic/hyper-competitive environment where the future is changing at a rapid pace.

Planning in simple terms answers the question `How do we get from where we are now (say Point A) to where we want to be (say Point B) - but in the real world Point B (the desired future state) is `not stationary' but changing/moving and unpredictable. This unpredictability poses complex challenges to strategic planners and has led to the lookout for alternative approaches to manage the future. The unpredictability of the business environment, competition and customer moods has prompted many strategic thinkers like Henry Mintzberg, etc. to recommend an `emergent' approach to strategic planning which prepares the organization to make unplanned responses to unforeseen circumstances.

Scenario Planning , Strategic planning, Industrial College of Armed Forces, ICAF, Volatility Uncertainty Complexity and Ambiguity, VUCA, Global Business Network, Social Technological Economic Environmental and Political forces , STEEP,Infrastructure management.