Scenario planning and analysis in practice: Investigating leadership development using action research in faith-based not-for-profit organisations in Australia

This paper reports on research in progress that is aimed at strengthening leadership capacity in Australias rapidly changing aged and community care sector. The research was supported by an Australian Research Council grant and involved three Australian Universities and two major faith-based not-for-profit organisations providing aged and community care. The approach involved scenario-based workshops which were used in practice in organisational research for leadership development. Two sets of workshops served different purposes the first to identify possible futures (scenario planning) and the second to deal with scenarios (scenario analysis). The paper contains a brief review of scenario planning and the differing needs of leadership in the not-for-profit sector under investigation. The processes used in both workshops are described along with data collected and analysed. A brief review of practice theory (applying action research) follows. Data collected and analysed and reflections on the use of scenarios are presented with some conclusions