The Futures Project®

Where ideas become impact.

A bespoke one-day activation experience — anywhere in the world.

If you have an idea that could change something that matters, this is where it becomes real.

What is The Futures Project®?

Over the past 20 years, I’ve worked with organisations navigating complexity, uncertainty and disruption. I’ve developed and refined frameworks that have shaped national workforce strategies, informed future-of-health initiatives, guided public-sector transformation and contributed to opportunities worth billions for some of the world’s largest consumer brands.

What I learned from all this work is simple:

When leaders have a transformative idea, the world rarely gives them the space to explore it properly. And most strategy processes slow great ideas down instead of activating them.

So I designed something different.

A space without bureaucracy or delay.
A day where we work together to take one idea as far as it can go — with intensity, clarity and curiosity.
An experience where the only agenda is the idea itself.

The Futures Project exists because some ideas deserve to be taken seriously.

This is that place.

The Futures Project is a private, high-intensity engagement for leaders with ideas that matter.
Ideas that can reshape organisations, industries, communities, or society.
Ideas that deserve to be taken seriously, and turned into impact.

This is not a workshop.
Not a program.
Not consulting in any traditional sense.

This is a space where you borrow my brain for a day — and we expand, articulate and activate the idea that has been harassing you for your attention.

If you have a transformative idea and want clarity, structure and momentum, this is where the work begins.

The Experience

For ideas that matter, and people who intend to make them real.

The Futures Project is built around one principle:
The world needs more leaders willing to bring meaningful ideas into existence, and fewer obstacles between idea and impact.

Everything about the experience is bespoke.
Everything centres on the idea you bring.

This work is for ideas with gravity.

Ideas with potential societal benefit.
Ideas that move beyond incrementalism.
Ideas that require courage, clarity and a well-framed future.

You are not coming to me for validation.
You are coming to turn your idea into impact.

There is no set curriculum or formula.
The process is designed around the idea, not the other way around.

Through a deeply immersive day, we:

  • stretch the idea

  • pressure-test assumptions

  • map the futures it could create

  • surface risks and opportunities

  • design the strategic logic

  • identify first moves

  • and shape the narrative you can use to activate it

The goal is simple and demanding:
Take your idea seriously, and give it the future it deserves.

Before We Come Together

Before we meet in person, I create the environment around your idea:

  • A curated trend and market scan

  • A bespoke pre-work questionnaire

  • A pack of frameworks and toolkits relevant to you from my published and unpublished work

  • A refined focal question to anchor our engagement

By the time we sit down together, groundwork has already been done.

The Workday: A Deep, Generative Conversation

This is the centrepiece — an intensive, high-trust, high-clarity working session.

It doesn’t always fit neatly into eight hours, because some ideas require more.
Some breakthroughs happen at 10pm.
Some insights emerge the next morning.

If the idea warrants a 24-hour cycle, we follow the work, not the clock.

Across the day, we map futures, explore consequences, unpack constraints, design pathways and build a strategic frame you can act on.

After the Experience: From Insights to Activation

Within 72 hours, you receive:

  • Your Future on a Page
    A clean, elegant map of the idea and the future it’s stepping into.

  • The Futures Dossier (12–16 pages)
    A strategic narrative capturing frameworks, implications, pathways and recommended actions.

  • The Visual Futures Wall
    Sketches, models and horizon maps from the session.

  • A Structured Transcript
    Pulling key insights, quotes and hypotheses from the conversation.

  • A Follow-Up Call
    Refining early moves and reviewing emerging signals.

These become the permanent record of your idea’s transition from concept to strategy.

This is for you if…

  • You have a transformative idea with potential societal benefit

  • You want to move from concept to impact with speed and clarity

  • You know your idea has value but haven’t yet found its structure

  • You want to explore the future the idea creates before you commit

  • You need rigorous thinking, honest challenge and strategic synthesis

  • You lead at a level where your decisions carry real consequences

  • You want a bespoke experience, not a program or template

  • You value depth, pace and precision

This is for leaders who don’t just want to predict the future - they want to shape it.

The Futures Project® is not the right fit if:

  • You want incremental improvements

  • You’re seeking validation rather than clarity

  • The idea has limited consequence or low ambition

  • You want a standardised framework or curriculum

  • You don’t want to be challenged

  • The idea doesn’t have potential for meaningful impact

  • You’re looking for long-term embedded consulting (I do futurist-in-residence work, but only for very limited organisations… but if that’s something you’d like to explore, please feel free to contact me).

  • You’re not ready to commit to action

This work is designed for people who take their ideas seriously.

If the idea isn’t big enough, bold enough or consequential enough, this won’t be the right format.

What Others Say

The Futures Project creates clarity, momentum and possibility.

Leaders bring ideas into this room because something important is at stake.
They leave with a sense of direction that wasn’t available before the day began.

Here’s how past participants describe the shift:

“Alex helped me map my future on a page in an afternoon.”
Founder & CEO, Social Enterprise

“I went from being the director of a good idea to having a business plan and first steps done.”
Director, Government Agency

“Alex is an encyclopaedia of epic ideas.”
Author & Speaker

“This guy really knows his sh!t.”
COO, ASX-listed Energy Company

Different industries.
Different challenges.
Different futures.

Yet the outcome is consistent:

Sharper thinking.
A clearer future.
And the confidence to move with purpose.

Availability and Investment

To protect the depth, quality and intensity of the work, I only have 10 slots per year (one per month from February to November) available for The Futures Project®. The cost is $20,000 AUD plus travel expenses, or you can come to me at my studio in Melbourne Australia.

Enquire About The Futures Project®

If you have an idea worth taking seriously, send me an email with one paragraph describing it (even rough is fine), and I’ll come back to you with next steps.

Futurist-In-Residence

Futurist-in-Residence

Embed future thinking into how your organisation actually makes decisions.

A Futurist-in-Residence is a strategic foresight partner embedded with your organisation over time, helping leaders anticipate change, test assumptions and make better decisions in the face of uncertainty. Rather than delivering one-off talks or static trend reports, this role integrates future thinking directly into your planning cycles, leadership conversations and strategic choices.

As your Futurist-in-Residence, I work alongside your leadership, strategy, innovation or people teams, or with internal innovators, to bring structured foresight into live decisions - supporting you to move from reactive responses to deliberate, future-aligned action.

What this engagement involves

Each residency is tailored, but typically includes a combination of:

  • Ongoing futures scanning and sense-making
    Identifying emerging trends, weak signals and systemic shifts relevant to your organisation — and interpreting what they actually mean for your strategy, workforce and operating model.

  • Scenario thinking and strategic challenge
    Developing plausible future scenarios to stress-test assumptions, reveal blind spots and explore strategic options before choices are locked in.

  • Advisory support for live decisions
    Providing foresight-informed input into current strategic questions, investment decisions, transformation initiatives or policy choices as they arise.

  • Leadership and team capability building
    Strengthening futures literacy across your organisation so teams can think long-term, hold uncertainty productively and make decisions with greater confidence.

  • Facilitated conversations that matter
    Working with executives, boards or cross-functional teams to surface implications, align perspectives and translate futures insight into action.

Who it’s for

This service is designed for organisations that want future thinking to be ongoing, practical and embedded, including:

  • Executive and leadership teams navigating complexity or transformation

  • Strategy, innovation and transformation functions

  • Boards seeking independent future insight to inform governance and long-term direction

  • HR and People teams aligning workforce strategy to emerging realities

Why a Futurist-in-Residence?

In environments shaped by uncertainty, disruption and compounding change, the organisations that perform best are not those that try to predict the future, but those that are prepared for multiple plausible futures.

A Futurist-in-Residence helps you:

  • Anticipate change earlier

  • Reduce strategic blind spots

  • Make better long-term decisions under uncertainty

  • Align strategy, workforce and capability to future conditions

  • Build resilience without losing momentum

The result is not a report on the future, but a stronger strategic muscle inside your organisation.

Formats

Residencies are flexible and may include:

  • Quarterly futures blocks aligned to planning and strategy cycles

  • On-call strategic foresight support for leadership teams

  • Time-bound embedded residencies with specific teams or initiatives

Let’s explore fit

If you’re looking to move beyond surface-level trend watching and embed future thinking into how your organisation actually operates, a Futurist-in-Residence may be the right fit. If this is something you’d like to explore, send me a note, and I’ll come back to you with next steps.

Helping leadership teams make better strategic decisions in uncertainty.

This service uses scenario planning to support leaders in making robust, confident strategic decisions when the future is uncertain and complexity is high. Rather than attempting to predict what will happen, scenario planning explores multiple plausible futures to test assumptions, reveal risks and opportunities, and improve decision quality before commitments are made.

I design and facilitate futures-informed strategy sessions that connect future possibilities directly to real strategic questions, priorities and trade-offs. The focus is practical and decision-oriented: futures thinking is to create robust strategy that is resilient to what the world might throw at you, and turns potential future challenges into opportunities.

This approach has been used at senior levels in complex organisations, including work with a global FMCG brand where scenario planning informed strategic decisions that contributed to identifying a multi-year growth opportunity valued at over USD $7 billion.

What this work enables

Futures-informed scenario planning helps leadership teams to:

  • Understand how external conditions could plausibly change;

  • Examine how current strategies perform across different futures;

  • Surface and challenge hidden assumptions;

  • Identify vulnerabilities, options and “no-regrets” moves;

  • Make strategic trade-offs explicit and intentional; and

  • Build shared understanding and alignment under uncertainty

Scenarios are treated as strategic tools used to inform today’s decisions, not only to speculate about tomorrow’s possibilities, and they’re critical in times of rapid disruption and transformation.

The LUCID method

This work is grounded in my LUCID method, developed through years of strategy and foresight practice and articulated in my 2019 book Thriving in Complexity.

LUCID provides a disciplined way to think and decide in complex environments:

  • Look — scan the environment for emerging trends and signals

  • Unpack — understand what is actually changing and why

  • Combine — bring forces together to explore how they may interact

  • Immerse — step into plausible futures to test thinking and assumptions

  • Decide — make informed, resilient strategic choices

LUCID ensures that futures thinking remains accessible, structured and focused on decisions — even when dealing with uncertainty.

A common engagement format: Trends → Scenarios → Decisions

While all engagements are tailored, one of the most effective and commonly used approaches is a three-step sequence:

1. Trends — Look & Unpack

We identify and unpack the key trends, forces and signals shaping your operating environment, separating noise from what genuinely matters for your organisation.

2. Scenarios — Combine & Immerse

Relevant trends are combined into a small number of plausible future scenarios. Leaders immerse themselves in these futures to test assumptions, explore risks and opportunities, and understand how current strategy performs under different conditions.

3. Decisions — Decide

Scenarios are used to inform real strategic choices - clarifying priorities, identifying no-regrets moves, surfacing trade-offs and strengthening confidence in the path forward.

This sequence ensures futures insight translates directly into strategy and action.

Formats

Futures-informed scenario planning and strategy facilitation can be delivered through:

  • Scenario-Based Strategy Day
    A focused, facilitated session using scenarios to inform strategic direction and key decisions.

  • Executive or Board Scenario Planning
    Tailored sessions aligned to governance, risk and long-term oversight.

  • Scenario Planning Workshop Series
    A structured series of facilitated workshops delivered over time, allowing leadership teams to revisit trends, refine scenarios and test decisions as conditions evolve. This format supports deeper learning, stronger alignment and more confident decision-making without requiring a futurist-in-residence.

Who this is for

  • Executive and senior leadership teams

  • Boards and governance groups

  • Strategy, transformation and risk leaders

  • HR and workforce leaders aligning strategy to future conditions

  • Organisations navigating uncertainty, disruption or inflection points

Outcomes

Clients typically leave with:

  • Stronger strategic decisions under uncertainty

  • Reduced blind spots and untested assumptions

  • Clearer options and strategic trade-offs

  • Greater alignment across leadership

  • Increased confidence in long-term direction

Let’s explore fit

If you want to move beyond reactive planning and embed future-aware thinking into real strategic decisions, this work provides a structured, practical way forward. Send me a message and I’ll come back to you with next steps.

Strategic Workforce Planning Masterclass

Identify, Build, and Sustain your ideal future workforce

The Strategic Workforce Planning Masterclass equips leaders and HR teams with the frameworks, tools and practical approaches needed to align workforce strategy with organisational goals, in environments shaped by uncertainty, disruption and change.

This masterclass moves beyond compliance-driven workforce planning or static forecasts. Instead, it focuses on strategic decision-making, helping participants understand how workforce choices shape long-term organisational performance, resilience and adaptability.

What this masterclass is about

Strategic workforce planning is not simply about predicting headcount. It is about making deliberate, informed decisions about capability, capacity and structure in the context of changing business models, technologies and labour markets.

In this masterclass, participants learn how to:

  • Connect workforce strategy directly to organisational strategy

  • Understand future drivers of workforce demand and supply

  • Identify critical roles, capabilities and risks

  • Use data and scenarios to inform workforce decisions

  • Move from analysis to action in complex environments

The emphasis throughout is practical, strategic and grounded in real organisational challenges.

What you’ll learn

Participants will develop capability across areas such as:

  • Strategic workforce planning fundamentals
    Understanding what SWP is, and what it’s not, in modern organisations.

  • Future-focused workforce thinking
    Integrating trends, uncertainty and scenarios into workforce planning.

  • Workforce demand and supply analysis
    Identifying where gaps, surpluses and risks are likely to emerge.

  • Critical roles and capabilities
    Focusing effort where it matters most, rather than spreading resources thinly.

  • Decision-making under uncertainty
    Using workforce insights to inform strategic choices, not just reports.

How the masterclass works

The Strategic Workforce Planning Masterclass is delivered as a facilitated learning experience, combining frameworks, case examples, discussion and applied exercises.

Formats include:

  • Public masterclasses in New Zealand, delivered through Human Resources New Zealand (HRNZ)

  • Public masterclasses in Australia

  • Private masterclasses delivered directly for organisations globally

Sessions are designed to be accessible to experienced HR practitioners while still challenging enough for senior leaders and executives.

Who it’s for

This masterclass is well suited to:

  • HR and People leaders

  • Workforce planners and analysts

  • Strategy and transformation leaders

  • Public sector and regulated environments

  • Executives responsible for long-term capability and workforce risk

No prior technical workforce planning expertise is required — the focus is on strategic understanding and application.

Outcomes

Participants typically leave with:

  • A clearer understanding of strategic workforce planning as a leadership discipline

  • Practical frameworks they can apply immediately

  • Greater confidence navigating workforce decisions under uncertainty

  • A shared language for discussing workforce risk and capability

  • Insight into how workforce strategy supports long-term organisational outcomes

Delivery options

Public Strategic Workforce Planning Training in Aotearoa New Zealand

I regularly deliver this masterclass in partnership with HRNZ, offering open enrolment sessions for HR professionals and leaders across New Zealand.

➡ For New Zealand Audiences: Online

4 x 4 hour sessions

Tuesday 18 August 2026 (12:30-5pm)

Thursday 20 August 2026 (12:30-5pm)

Tuesday 25 August 2026 (12:30-5pm)

Thursday 27 August 2026 (12:30-5pm)

Register for the online Strategic Workforce Planning Masterclass with HRNZ.

➡ In Person, Wellington

2 days in Wellington, 11-12 May 2026

Register for the Wellington Strategic Workforce Planning Masterclass with HRNZ.

➡ In Person, Auckland

2 days in Wellington, 13-14 May 2026

Register for the Auckland Strategic Workforce Planning Masterclass with HRNZ.

Public Strategic Workforce Planning Training in Australia

Offering open enrolment sessions for HR professionals and leaders across Australia.

➡ In Person, Melbourne

24th and 25th February, 2026

15th and 16th June, 2026

13th and 14th October, 2026

Register for a Melbourne Strategic Workforce Planning Masterclass via TryBooking, or contact us directly if you’d like to be invoiced.

Private & In-house Masterclasses (Global)

I also deliver this masterclass directly for organisations - tailored to your context, workforce challenges and strategic priorities.

➡ Enquire about a private masterclass

Let’s explore the right option

If you’re looking to strengthen workforce strategy capability, the Strategic Workforce Planning Masterclass provides a practical, future-aware foundation.

📧 [email protected]
or enquire via the contact form.