DECISION INTELLIGENCE
Run your scenarios before presenting them as recommendations.
A strategy describes a future. But that future depends on what customers, competitors, citizens, employees, partners, and institutions will do. Imagine All The People adds the behavioral layer to your strategic scenarios.
Strategy = a future that depends on other people’s behavior
02 — THE DECISIONS THIS FUNCTION HAS TO MAKE
Decisions, not issues.
- Choose between several growth scenarios
- Enter — or not enter — a new category or geography
- Reposition an activity, brand, or model
- Sequence a transformation over time
- Choose the pace: gradual or decisive
- Identify the most robust scenario, not the most attractive one
03 — WHY TRADITIONAL METHODS ARE NOT ALWAYS ENOUGH
What standard approaches can miss.
- Strategic scenarios rely on behavioral assumptions that are rarely tested as such.
- Benchmarks describe what others have done, not what your populations will do with your decision.
- Intent research captures a stated preference, not a trajectory of adoption or abandonment.
- Financial sensitivity analysis varies parameters, not behaviors.
04 — WHAT WE ENABLE YOU TO SIMULATE
What becomes possible to test.
- The same populations exposed to several scenarios
- Divergence of trajectories over time, at 12 / 24 / 36 / 60 months
- Scenario robustness as behaviors evolve
- Tipping points: the moment a trajectory stops being reversible
- Side effects that could cancel the expected benefit
CORE MECHANISM
Three scenarios, the same populations, different trajectories.
Comparing scenarios is not about comparing strategic intentions: it is about comparing what those scenarios produce on identical populations.
By holding populations constant and changing only the decision, the observed difference becomes attributable to the scenario itself — not to a change in sample or interview context.
- Scenario A
- Scenario B
- Scenario C
- Same populations
- Different reactions
- 12 / 24 / 36 / 60 months
- Decision
05 — POPULATIONS INVOLVED
Populations involved.
- Current and potential customers
- Lost or disengaging customers
- Employees and those responsible for implementation
- Partners and distributors
- Citizens and users, when a public decision is involved
- Institutions and regulatory stakeholders
06 — MECHANISMS TO OBSERVE
Mechanisms to observe.
- Trajectory divergence
- Tipping points
- Scenario robustness and fragility
- Delayed effects
- Substitution and switching
- Decisive populations
07 — CASE STUDIES
Decisions of this kind already tested.
- MAJOR BRANDS“Anticipate the reception of a public environmental manifesto over the following 5 years.”5-year public trajectory · binding annual reporting
- RESEARCH & INSIGHTSHow do you integrate 24-month behavioral projections into a strategy consulting firm's deliverables?340 consultants · 8 countries · 24 months of projected trajectories
- RETAIL“How can a DIY retailer's store concept be modernized without losing the professional tradespeople who account for 40 % of revenue?”240-store network · tradespeople = 40 % of revenue
- RETAILAnticipate how the bulk-food aisle will evolve over 5 years in a general retailer.3.4M shoppers · 13 attitudes-to-bulk profiles · 60 months
- URBAN PLANNING & MOBILITY“How can a new mixed-use district be designed on a brownfield site so that social mix endures over 10 years?”1.4M residents and workers · 18 profiles · 120 months
- CREATIVE INDUSTRIES“ How can a video-game franchise dormant for 8 years be relaunched without losing the historical community ? ”1.4M players · 16 attitudes-to-franchise profiles · 18 months
08 — IN YOUR WORK
How this fits into the function’s day-to-day work.
- 01ASSUMPTIONS
- 02SCENARIOS
- 03POPULATIONS
- 04PROJECTIONS
- 05COMPARISON
- 06RECOMMENDATION
- During scoping: turn the implicit assumptions in a scenario into testable variables.
- During comparison: produce comparable trajectories rather than competing arguments.
- During the readout: document the populations on which the recommendation depends.
RELATED DECISIONS
Related decision types
- ArbitrateCompare several possible futures before making a decision that is hard to reverse.
- TransformChange an existing system without triggering the side effects that cancel out the expected benefit.
- RepositionChange perception without destroying the value that was already there.
- AnticipateExplore what can happen when behaviours evolve over time.
Another function
- Executive leadershipThe decisions with the greatest consequences are judged by their indirect effects, which often become visible too late to correct.
- Marketing & BrandWhat people prefer in a test does not tell you what they will do in store, online, or after three months of use.
- Innovation & TransformationThe question is not whether people like the innovation, but what they will have to change for it to work.
- Research & InsightsThe need is no longer one study per question, but a permanent capability to investigate decisions.
- Public affairsA public decision is shaped less by whether it is justified than by how each group interprets it.
- Human resourcesOne internal rule can produce very different effects depending on the jobs to which it applies.
Your next decision
Which decision do you want to explore?
Describe your need. We can point you to the right level of support.
