You should read this if… you are a CEO or board member who wants to strengthen decision‑making for impact and growth in a world where past data alone is no longer enough. This article explains what futures intelligence is and how it brings together trends, signals, and emerging change to support foresight‑informed decisions. It shows how futures intelligence helps leaders move from insight to action by making sense of uncertainty, exploring multiple plausible futures, and understanding how choices made today shape longer‑term outcomes. By embedding futures intelligence into decision‑making, organisations can act with greater confidence, align strategy with emerging realities, and intentionally design pathways to impact and future growth rather than reacting after change has already occurred.

You should read this if… you are interested in an evidence-based view of whether Australia’s charity sector is building balance sheets or converting revenue into service delivery. This post uses publicly available ACNC data (covering over 49,000 charities, with annual datasets available back to 2013) to examine sector “wealth” and balance‑sheet health, and finds that most Australian charities raising revenue from the public in 2019 appeared financially healthy, with assets and liabilities broadly proportionate to sector revenue. It notes that charities holding land and property tend to have larger balance sheets and that property value increases—particularly in metropolitan areas—have supported balance‑sheet strength, while revenue growth did not appear to be disproportionately used to inflate balance sheets; it also argues that adding cashflow data to ACNC reporting would enable a more complete assessment

Innovation is a tricky beast. It's not always clear that the risks outweigh the rewards. For those of us in for-purpose organisations, getting the business case right to fund innovation is critical; uncertainty can be a roadblock, but it doesn't have to be.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to using strategic foresight in your business. The key is to experiment, find what works for you, and adapt as needed.

You should read this if… you are struggling with unclear briefs, misaligned expectations, or work that becomes more complicated than it needs to be. This article introduces the CPQQRT framework—Context, Purpose, Quality, Quantity, Resources, and Time—as a practical way to manage complexity by dramatically improving clarity in how work is defined and delegated. It explains how using CPQQRT helps leaders articulate what needs to be done, why it matters, what “good” looks like, and the constraints involved, reducing confusion, rework, and frustration while enabling teams to deliver stronger outcomes in complex organisational environments.

A good way to create alternative views of futures is by building scenarios. This involves bringing together different trends, phenomena, and uncertainties to understand their interdependence and joint implications.

One way that long-range planning is enhanced is through the creation of various alternative futures, which are significantly different from one another. The scenarios that planners create can be based on different assumptions about technology, demography, economics, politics, and other factors.

When it comes to planning, looking at what's in the rearview mirror is not enough. You need to look ahead through the windshield at the road ahead.

You should watch this video if… you are interested in better ways to plan in the face of uncertainty, complexity, and uncomfortable realities. This article explores the concepts of Black Elephants, Black Swans, and Black Jellyfish as practical lenses for future‑informed planning—helping leaders distinguish between risks they see but avoid, shocks they don’t expect, and issues that appear manageable but can escalate unexpectedly. It shows how deliberately identifying and exploring all three concepts expands strategic thinking, supports more resilient and diversified plans, and strengthens an organisation’s ability to respond thoughtfully to disruption rather than being surprised by it.

You should read this if… you are a leader in business who wants a clearer way to strengthen planning and decision‑making in an uncertain, fast‑changing environment. This article introduces two simple but powerful frames for planning: understanding that every plan is built on a mix of knowledge and assumptions, and recognising that real‑world outcomes are shaped by how plans collide with reality. It explains how making assumptions explicit, testing them with foresight tools, and planning for shifting conditions helps leaders design more adaptable strategies—reducing surprise, improving execution, and increasing the likelihood that plans deliver impact and future growth even as circumstances change.

Build a lasting future for your business with foresight-driven planning. Discover how tools, data, and aligned actions can help you stay agile and achieve long-term goals.

Forward thinking leaders need to develop the ability to scan for signals, issues and trends that are developing now and create a view on how they might play across a range of futures.

It can be easy to believe that tomorrow will be like today—that customers will have the same demands, that businesses will operate in the same way, or that Governments will make similar decisions. These beliefs are comforting, in part because they suggest that nothing fundamental will change in our futures. But if we believe these things about futures, then we are limiting those who come after us to live in a world that is less than what it could be.

Forward-thinking CEOs and Boards are using foresight to plan for tomorrow. They're looking 5,10,20 years into the future to see what might happen. By doing this, they're able to make today's decisions with more confidence and greater reliability.

You should read this if… you are looking for a simple, powerful way to make sense of the forces shaping your organisation’s future. This video introduces the Futures Triangle, a foresight tool developed by Prof. Sohail Inayatullah, and explains how it helps leaders map the push of present trends, the pull of preferred futures, and the weight of past assumptions and structures. By visualising how these three forces interact, the Futures Triangle creates a shared frame for better planning and decision‑making—helping organisations clarify what is driving change, what is holding them back, and what kind of future they are actively working towards to support impact and future growth.

You should watch this if… you are business leader who relies on forecasts but suspects they are no longer enough to guide decisions in an increasingly uncertain world. This article explains the shift from forecasting to foresight, showing why forecasts—based on extrapolating past data—struggle when conditions change, while foresight explores multiple possible futures to inform better choices today. It clarifies how foresight broadens thinking beyond single predictions, helps leaders anticipate disruption, challenge assumptions, and plan with greater resilience, making it a more reliable foundation for strategy, impact, and long‑term growth than forecasts alone.

You should read this if… you are a leader in business who wants your organisation to stay agile and relevant in the face of rapid change rather than relying on slow, reactive innovation cycles. This article introduces responsive innovation as the capability to adapt strategies, processes, and operations quickly as new information, risks, and opportunities emerge. It explains how responsive innovation goes beyond last‑minute change by embedding agility, experimentation, and learning into everyday decision‑making—enabling organisations to respond faster to shifting customer needs, unlock new opportunities, and build resilience and long‑term success in uncertain environments.

At insight & foresight we define foresight as the skill of looking forward to preparing for what might happen next. This is not about predicting the future with but rather using proven foresight tools and skills to explore a range of plausible, possible, probable, and preferred futures so we can better understand what could happen and…

CEOs and Boards who stay curious about what's around the corner can find numerous ways to deliver impact and future growth. You can resist becoming paralysed by fear, allowing your actions to be driven by opportunity rather than uncertainty. Here’s 7 ways to help you stay curious…

Before not-for-profit CEOs and Boards decide what to do to deliver growth its best to start with a refresher on how businesses grow. Business growth can occur in two categories; Organic growth and inorganic growth. Understanding which is which can help your decision making….