Scenario

Scenario: a narrative about a related sequence of events which identifies exogenous factors determining which events occur and also how some of these events cause or modify the nature of subsequent events.


A Scenario is in general a textual description (narrative, unstructured or structured text) of a perceived view or understanding of a topic under discussion. A scenario may cover an existing world status, a future vision or even some fiction. 

Scenarios are either mental models of stakeholders or an output of simulations.

Some features a scenario can possess:

  •  Different stakeholders may develop different sets of scenarios independently (reflecting e.g. different mental models in scenario sets of different groups).
  • Scenarios may be conflicting among different stakeholder groups.
  • Alternative scenarios describe different aspects and /or alternatives of the (policy) context under consideration.
  • Scenarios may relate to one another, for example,
    • a scenario can extend and therewith advance an existing scenario
    • a scenario may be nested in another scenario, i.e. describe a particular aspect of a scenario in more detail through a separate (nested) scenario.

Three types of scenarios are distinguished in OCOPOMO, differing by stakeholders and time when it was generated along the OCOPOMO policy development process:

  1. Initial scenario – provided by a facilitator and the policy owner(s) in phase 1 of the process to stimulate the subsequent discussion and generation of alternative scenarios (in phase 2).
  2. Evidence-based scenario - also called user generated scenario – collaboratively developed scenarios by stakeholders who communicate their opinions, views and expectations in a set of scenarios.
  3. Model generated scenario – computed as a result of running a simulation of a policy model. It is produced as a text-based transcription of a simulation run.

 

"A scenario is an internally consistent and coherent sketch
(archetypal image) of the future visions of eGovernment[+] , which may not be approximated from current developments (scenarios are not trends!). A scenario consists of a set of issue[+] s and associated consequences (a number of topics of interest and dimension[+] s).
Note: Scenarios may, nevertheless, often be impacted by
interpretations and approximations of current realities."[1]

Sources

[1] http://www.egovrtd2020.org/navigation/work_packages/wp2_scenario_building/

 

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