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Scenario Planning: Be Ready for Four Futures, 390+ Tools
3,084 students
Scenario Planning: Be Ready for Four Futures, 390+ Tools
One annual plan, one future, no plan B? Scenario planning, strategic foresight, forecasting and contingency plans
Last updated 10/2026
English
English [Auto],
What you'll learn
- Prepare for several versions of next year instead of one: take 390+ question lists, templates, procedures and checklists in 46 downloadable resources
- Tell a durable shift from a cyclical swing and from hype, using a stated filter
- Build a forecast from your own data and know how much confidence it deserves
- Use journey and funnel analytics, attrition data, surveys and correlation
- Run regression and design an experiment with a control group
- Model capacity under several different futures and run a gap analysis
- Recognise the biases that write the scenario before you look at the data, and decide when the situation is unclear
- Build the contingency plan for the scenario where the budget disappears, and turn scenarios into a plan
- See planning and analysis tools on screen, including Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Miro, Jira and Asana
- Learn with Mike, the #1 HR instructor on Udemy: 1,800,000+ enrollments, 170,000 students, about 200 books on Amazon
Explore related topics
Course content
15 sections • 42 lectures • 21h 36m total length
Requirements
- Experience in planning, HR, operations or management helps
- A spreadsheet such as Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel
- No statistics background required; methods are explained step by step
- English at intermediate level or above, since all lessons are in English
Description
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
You cannot predict next year. You can be ready for four versions of it. Those are different skills, and only one of them is usually taught. Here are 391 tools for the second: 242 ready-to-use question lists, templates, procedures, checklists and formulas, 102 models and methods, 41 services shown on screen and 6 working files.
Open a lecture, take the template, and build your first scenario on your own data.
Why one plan is not a plan
Most annual planning produces a single future with numbers attached to it. Everyone knows it will not happen exactly that way, but there is no version for what happens instead. When the market shifts, the plan is defended for months and then rewritten in a hurry, and the decisions that would have been easy in January become expensive in June.
What changes after this course
You read signals and separate a shift from noise. You forecast from your own data, model capacity under several futures and see the gaps early. You know which biases shape the scenario, how to decide when the situation is unclear, and what the contingency plan says if the budget disappears. And you turn the scenarios into a plan people execute.
What is inside: 391 tools, counted lecture by lecture
You do not have to take this number on trust. Open any lecture and read its description: every tool inside is listed there by name.
- 46 downloadable resources: lecture presentations plus 6 working files, including research reports, an employee survey results workbook and a scenario watch calendar
- 242 ready-to-use tools inside the presentations:
- 61 question lists and scripts: premortem risk assessment, qualitative probability assessment, vision development, key strategic decisions
- 58 templates and sample documents: PESTEL analysis, risk register with mitigation actions, strategic gap analysis, strategy implementation plan
- 46 step-by-step procedures: rational situation analysis, OODA loop, five-step strategic planning, two-day strategic session facilitation
- 31 checklists: data validation, thinking quality, strategic planning team selection, performance metric quality
- 26 scorecards, rubrics and matrices: risk probability-impact matrix, SWOT analysis, stakeholder power-interest matrix, CARVER matrix
- 18 formulas and metric sets: trend-based workforce demand, staffing for upcoming work, FTE calculation and six types, regression model diagnostics
- 2 other working tools: Cynefin framework, monetary reward decision tree
- 102 models and methods explained with examples: scenario planning, Delphi method, trend forecasting, PESTEL HR environmental analysis
- 41 services shown on screen, including Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Miro, Jira, Asana and Confluence
Where the tools are
Reading signals (2 sections, 66 tools). Shift, cycle or noise, generations, engagement and the operating model.
Data and forecasting (4 sections, 105 tools). The quantitative base, journey and funnel analytics, attrition, surveys, regression and experiments.
Modelling futures (2 sections, 83 tools). Capacity under different futures, optimisation and the full cycle.
Deciding under uncertainty (2 sections, 45 tools). Judging the scenario you built, evidence and decisions when the situation is unclear.
The hard scenario (2 sections, 69 tools). The scenario everyone must be ready for, hard choices, communication and contingency.
From scenario to plan (2 sections, 54 tools). Turning scenarios into a plan, running the session and executing.
Who is teaching
I am Mike, the #1 HR instructor on Udemy, with 1,800,000+ course enrollments from 170,000 students, and the author of about 200 books on Amazon. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn and worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank across 20 years in HR. I hold PHRi, SHRM-CP and HCI sHRBP certifications and represent HRCI in Eastern Europe. I am also a founder and lead the strategy of my own academy.
When I joined Marcom in 2008, the crisis was at its peak: clients stopped paying, the hryvnia fell by half against the dollar, and there was no money for bonuses or even salaries. My employee survey showed that people wanted to know what was happening, so the CEO stood in front of everyone and said in a few simple phrases how bad things were. At Wargaming, when leaders worried about resignations, I showed that attrition had grown from 10% to 12% to 15% and that at this pace it would reach 30-35% within five years. A forecast, not a report, is what made people act.
How to use the course
Start with the signal and data sections, then build one scenario set and its contingency plan for your own organisation. Section and lecture titles show how many tools are inside, and each lecture description lists them by name.
What is included
- 42 lectures across 15 sections, 21.5 hours
- 46 downloadable resources: lecture presentations and 6 working files
- 391 tools across the lessons, including 41 services shown on screen
- Lifetime access to all materials
- Active instructor support in the Q&A section
- A Udemy Certificate of Completion
Where to start
Write down the one assumption your current plan depends on most, then open the first section and test whether it is a shift, a cycle or noise. Enrol now and start your first lesson today.
Who this course is for:
- Leaders and strategy specialists responsible for annual plans
- HR leaders and workforce planners
- Operations and finance managers who model capacity and budgets
- Analysts who prepare forecasts for decisions
- Founders who plan under uncertainty