Backcasting
Design Futures/Fiction
A method used in speculative design to envision a desired future state and then work backward to identify the steps and actions needed to achieve that future. Backcasting helps designers plan for and shape preferable futures.
In practice
In strategic design and foresight, backcasting is a methodology that involves envisioning a desirable future scenario and then working backward to identify the steps and strategies needed to reach that future. Designers use backcasting to set long-term goals, plan interventions, and align present actions with a preferred future vision, fostering a strategic and intentional approach to design and decision-making.
Questions
What is Backcasting?
Backcasting starts from a desirable future state and works backwards to the present, mapping the steps that would have had to happen to arrive there.
Why do you use Backcasting?
Forecasting extrapolates from now and tends to reproduce the present. Backcasting begins with the outcome you want, which makes room for change that current trends do not predict.
How do you use/apply Backcasting?
Define the future state precisely, identify the conditions it requires, then work back through the milestones and decisions between there and here.
When do you use Backcasting?
In strategy, sustainability and policy work, and any time the goal is to change a trajectory rather than ride it.
Who uses Backcasting?
Strategists, futures practitioners and sustainability teams.
