I'm currently using The Future Backwards in a piece of work with two churches looking at how they can best work together.

It's amazing to see how the groups tell their own stories quite differently when they've been constructed backwards than if they were just telling the history of their churches.

The best thing about using the technique (and other Cognitive Edge methods) is that people come out of the sessions feeling really enthused - as one person told me 'it's the best church meeting I've ever been to - no-one is forced to contribute and no-one's creativity is stifled'.

Thank you, Dave!

One question, Dave - do you have any experience of dealing with a group that is newly formed and therefore does not have a history to recount in the first place before looking at future alternatives?

thanks Dave - I found this link via colleagues and it reminded me of a post I wrote a while back - also with a chassic story that may provide a strong narrative/parable and some questions that people will find useful:

hope this finds you well,
natalie

PS - while I concur on your last point on the ease for dominant players facilitators to engineer the story that they want to hear I have noticed, in my pursuits of storytelling (oral storytelling...old tales etc) for adults that actually there is a possibility to do it healthily and have people quite easily see the positive meaning without making it too complex by discussing narrative. I suppose I make this point is often I get excited by academic / intellectualising things especially about my passion for story and dialogue and change and yet I do come back to the point that STORY is something everyone understands and with a well facilitated space and good questions people can easily have an experience of something positive and different that enables them to come to a story they want to be part of...

Thanks for the comments Natalie. I took the liberty of HTMLing you blog link.

I think the point about facilitators is that yes they can produce a healthy interaction, but the story is no longer that of the person who told it, its the story of their interaction. Its what psychologists do all the time. To be honest that is one of my worries. Far too many facilitators who use narrative seem to adopt the language and practices of counseling (I will not dignify it with the P word), rather than those of eliciting/listening.

I think that this is part of the point that you make about story being natural to people. It does not need the expert to illicit the stories, let alone interpret them. The danger I was pointing to (and it is an especial danger with techniques such as Appreciative Inquiry, much beloved amongst facilitators with a counseling bent, which privileges a certain type of story. So I am nervous when you say with a well facilitated space and good questions people can easily have an experience of something positive and different that enables them to come to a story they want to be part of..
There are two many examples of people becoming a part of a story in history and in the cult like tendencies of modern management movements for me not to be!

David - you queston on newly formed groups.
If it is two groups coming together I get them both to plot their own and each other's timelines backwards from the current state. Then a common Heaven and Hell

Then let the two groups see what each other have done