Future Focus Vernon: City Planning Workshop Case Study

In the interior of British Columbia, City Planners and City Council in the city of Vernon BC are in the process of updating their city's Official Community Plan - a document that describes the long-term vision of their growing community of 50,000 people.

Given the speed of climate and social change, and a projection of continuing rapid population growth, they wondered what tools and decisions might help us effectively plan for 2045?

That's when a Future Focus workshop came into play.

Future Focus is a planning workshop that uses facilitated group experiences to generate new insights and practice futures thinking skills. With specific tools and deliberate processes, Future Focus workshops generate flexible thinking to challenge underlying assumptions in a way that enables visions of vital and viable futures to emerge.

The planning staff in Vernon already had a number of robust planning documents in place, including official transportation, housing and climate mitigation strategies. Now they were looking for ways to bring themselves and Council into the mindset of the city in 2045.

Through a guided process of scanning for drivers of change, using results to inform diverse future scenarios, and surfacing strategies in light of possible futures, Future Focus helped bring implications of today's decision making into focus.

The 4-hour workshop took place in Council Chambers in early September. Participation by Council was lively, their contributions articulate and sincere. Planning staff came away with rich insights to inform the Official City Plan.

Here's what the Future Focus Vernon process looked like.

Drivers of Change

To prepare for the Vernon workshop, researchers and facilitators Rebecca Black MES, MDes and Kathy Porter, M.Des., PhD Candidate consulted with planning staff, and reviewed community, transportation, housing and climate plans from a range of cities across North America. They distilled key, impactful drivers of change, large scale forces significantly shifting or influencing the future informed by planning staff, planning materials for Vernon, other cities and planning organizations.

Day-of, Council received a deck of Drivers of Change cards to consult throughout the workshop, and keep for future reference and use. Together, council considered what impact they believed the drivers of change would have over the next 20 years, and how certain they were of that impact. The results of their conversation were mapped on a digital whiteboard, resulting in a compelling visualization of impacts on Vernon by 2045.

Future Scenarios

Building on noted futurist Jim Dator's four archetypical Generic Images of the Futures, Kathy and Rebecca pushed the drivers of change out 20 years into the future and asked, what might Vernon look like if this driver continued to have impact? From these snapshots of possibilities in 2045, they generated four very different yet plausible future scenarios: Continued Growth, Disciplined, Collapse and Transformative.

In each of these diverse futures, Council were asked probing questions to deepen their consideration of this version of the future. Which drivers of change were the most impactful? How was value - economic and otherwise - created and experienced by people living in Vernon? What planning and zoning decisions would help advance security and wellbeing for people in the City of Vernon in this scenario?

Non-partisan problem solving

Council answered these vital questions, as well as a series of reflection questions to open and close the session. From considering the imagined futures of the younger people in their lives, to noting things they might do now to set the path for preferable outcomes, their transparency and humanity was commendable. A tone of collaboration and empathy resonated throughout the session.

As one Councillor mentioned, 'these are important questions to reflect on', while another enthused about 'a great session, and a fun way to use the (drivers of change) cards'. The workshop tools and format broke down partisan discourse to focus on the extremely important shared task at hand - planning a thriving future for people in Vernon.

What's next?

Future Focus is a collaborative partnership between Kathy Porter, M.Des., PhD Candidate and Rebecca Black MES, MDes . Completing OCADU‘s acclaimed Strategic Foresight and Innovation Master of Design program together in 2022, we apply human-centred design, systems and futures thinking skills and work towards our vision: a regenerative, optimistic future for all.

We have designed and delivered Future Focus workshops for municipalities, corporate clients and at industry events, each workshop using a strategic foresight process customized to respond to the desired outcomes of the situation.

Curious about the potential of foresight to generate insights, break down silos, spur innovation and support strategy development in your organization or planning process? Reach out!