Monitoring Emerging Issues: A Proposed Approach and Initial Test

The increasing complexity and uncertainty of the future may stimulate demand for more monitoring emerging issues. Futurists have long advocated for monitoring the future on an ongoing basis or for tracking the findings of project work in practice. However, clients have historically been reluctant to invest time and money in monitoring, and little practical guidance is available on how to set up a monitoring. This article describes a pilot monitoring capability that is simple and practical to implement. It was developed as a “plug-in” to supplement an ongoing horizon scanning system. The monitoring system tracks the movement of emerging issues that were identified by horizon scanning. It provides a means to keep policy-makers informed about the progress of emerging issues and provides advance warning to develop an appropriate strategic response.