Weak signals - signs of what may become significant in the future

Something unexpected, surprising and new. It can be a sign of a so-called "weak signal" that can be an important clue for us about the future.

We live in a changing world where technological and innovative progress is happening faster than ever and where it is said that there is an doubling of information every twelve hours. Today, it is completely impossible to keep track of everything that happens and all the many areas and phenomena, viral and physical, that are trending every day in different forums and parts of the world. This in turn has made it difficult to predict where we are headed and what a possible future may look like in different parts of society.

Perhaps the most common way to talk about, and work strategically with the future is by performing various trend analyzes, where the first step is to identify events and development processes that are clear now and think about what consequences they may have in the long term or if they scaled up. But how do we know that we're really catching all the interesting and important pieces of the puzzle by just looking at what's trending 'right now?

In order to be able to successfully pursue active future work, it is at least as important to, in addition to looking at current trends and patterns, also be able to broaden their future views, take in more perspectives and aspects and dare to challenge assumptions previously made about the future. If we prepare for, and work with several different future scenarios and are aware of the many parts that may affect, then we will encounter fewer surprises and have easier to prepare for, and plan for what is to come.

An effective way to achieve this is to work with signal reconnaissance of so-called weak signals. A weak signal is a first stage to a change or a sign of something that may become significant in the future. It is something that is going on, but is not yet important or perhaps general, but that requires time to mature. Weak signals often encourage the question "think again?" and challenges our current way of thinking.

Complementing our work on trends and strategic analysis by continuously working to collect weak signals in various ways enables us to improve our future capacity and the ability to utilize forecasts and think of several alternative future scenarios.

Below are examples of some steps an organization can follow to begin the work of signal reconnaissance around weak signals:

• Choose an area of interest, it can be a designated challenge, issue or generally a technology or market area
• Set a time frame, for example a week or month to be devoted to signal scouting
• Creating a signal acquisition template can be as simple as a spreadsheet with columns around:
• What is the weak signal about?
• Reference to source that the signal was picked up from eg article, video other
• Time around when it happened
• Description of how the signal may develop if it becomes a trend. This can be seen as a representation of a future where this signal belongs to the "normal"
• Categorize the signal based on the so-called "STEEP analysis", which involves a classification of whether the signal affects society on a social, technological, economic, ecological or political level.
• Then set a time to discuss the signals that have come up. The discussion of the signals captured is usually the most rewarding of the whole work, as it often leads to new types of reasoning and thoughts. Make sure to create a discussion with a high ceiling and where everyone is encouraged to challenge their views and have a curious attitude.

Read more about how weak signals can be used on: Tips on how weak signals can be used - Sitra