Situational awareness across different temporalities: scenario exercises for health, security and energy futures

This article looks at the concept of situational awareness in the context of scenario planning. It draws on three cases in which scenarios are used–scenario-based Turning Point exercises in Israel, which focus on security and emergency situations; health scenarios and simulations conducted by the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe; and energy scenarios in the World Energy Council–and examines the different ways in which situational awareness is manifested in these scenarios. In WHO scenarios, situational awareness is initially intricately connected to specific details of the situation described in the scenario, triggering a predefined model for reporting and responding to health crises. In Turning Point scenarios, however, the use of situational awareness not only activates a predetermined response but also encourages critical thinking about the broader context of the event and the important questions and challenges that arise from it. In the WEC scenarios, situational awareness is directed towards potential future changes and developments by creating rich narratives of plausible futures that enable engagement with the future. The analysis shows that the particular temporality of the context in which the scenario technology is used affects the way in which situational awareness is manifested in each case.