Reflection I.F.V.

by Gert-Jan Wit
The first assignment was about my vision for my own future. I got the feedback that parts of it where
quite far fetched and that it wasn’t very in depth. Therefore, I made a second version addressing
some of this feedback. For the assignments regarding the overview of potential trends and the
impact diagram I didn’t get much feedback, therefore, I have left these as they were.

Based on the trends that I found and the impact diagram I made in the previous assignments I made
a scenario for the possible future of Scheemda. My scenario concerned a situation whereby the
population of Scheemda would decrees in the future and where there would be a large risk of
flooding in the area as well. The feedback I received on this first version of my scenario was that the
title was a bit long and that it could be a little more in depth. I also got told that it was appreciated
that my scenario was based on the research from the previous assignment which backed the
statements from the scenario up. Based on this feedback I made a new version of my scenario which
expanded on the previous version and this one got a new title as well.

During the final session with my team and our teacher we decided that my scenario would be the
most probable and undesirable future for Scheemda. An opposite situation, whereby there wouldn’t
be a risk of flooding and the population in Scheemda would stay more or less the same would be
more desirable. Based on this result I made a poster (because my team was busy doing other stuff)
based on the scenario made by Marten (one of my team members) describing the most desirable
future for Scheemda.

Looking back at the various assignments I made I have learned the value of making scenarios. It helps
to make decisions for making designs or creating policies to shape the future and trying to steer the
future in a desired direction. It did also help that most of the team members made scenarios
regarding different possibilities because it showed to me that not only the scenario which is based on
the current trends must be plausible. I didn’t expect initially that Marten’s scenario would be as
plausible as it turned out to be. With the right reasoning it can be made into an acceptable future
where we can try to steer towards.

Working in a team during the intelligent lockdown courtesy of the corona crisis wasn’t so easy.
Making my individual scenario’s and doing research didn’t change much. But working with a team
whilst communicating mostly over WhatsApp wasn’t nearly as easy as talking to each other in
person. I also noticed myself doing a lot of the teamwork by myself (like the final scenario poster).
This is of course partly because only one person can work on this at a time, but also partially because
some team members did a little (or a lot) more work than others, sadly.

The main takeaway for myself in the future would probably be to continue to use the scenario
approach because it allows to gain new insights in a project and helps in steering toward a better
future. I also should try to divide the work with team members better because this didn’t go very
smoothly, especially during the last few weeks. The period hasn’t been all easy going due to the
quarantine, but I managed to make the best of it.

Gert-Jan Wit (373495)

Groningen, may 8th, 2020