15 General Introduction 2. The developmental phase, where storylines are created and key scenarios are chosen; 3. The use phase, which uses the scenarios from the former step to create strategies. Dean describes these steps in more detail, summarized below:24 1. Scoping (the foundation): The scenario planning team decides on the scope of the exercise, the issue, the timeframe, and the stakeholders who will be involved. 2. Information search: With the foundation in mind, basic data and information on all the factors that potentially influence future developments are obtained. This includes searching through (gray) literature and interviews with experts and relevant stakeholders. 3. Trend and uncertainty analysis: With a thorough list of factors from Step 2, the most relevant factors are chosen and placed in an importance/uncertainty grid. This ranking exercise can be done with the participation of relevant experts and stakeholders. 4. Scenario building: The identified trends and critical uncertainties from Step 3 are made into plausible scenarios that describe future possible states; 2x2 or 2x2x2 matrices can be used. 5. Strategy definition: With the selected scenarios in mind, strategic options can be tested against the future conditions using various tools and techniques to find the most flexible and robust strategy. 6. Monitoring: The critical uncertainties and trends need to be continuously monitored by a set of key indicators that are defined to help monitor the environment. Doing so helps the users see if the scenario from previous steps remain valid and/or if the strategy employed needs to be altered. As individuals undergo these steps, it is a learning process at the individual and collective level. At the individual level, scenario planning challenges individuals’ mental models of assumptions of how the world works by alerting them to elements of novelty that may be uncomfortable and surprising and engages them to think of innovating strategies. At the collective level, this is a tool that encourages strategic conversation between stakeholders, confronting different perspectives and mental models with the external environment.20,21,24,25 Overall, by having strategic foresight into how the current strategy would fare under different scenarios or by discovering new strategic options within multiple scenarios.25 Hence, as Transfusion Medicine and blood banking management have changed dramatically, as past and current trends show decreasing demand of RBCs, and as
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