Abstract
Scenario planning is often promoted as a way to challenge assumptions and prepare organizations for uncertainty. Yet little is known about what happens when scenarios confront leadership bias and internal power dynamics. Drawing on an autoethnographic study of a 2006 scenario planning effort at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, this article reveals how strategic persistence and organizational politics initially limited leadership’s acceptance of scenarios developed outside the senior team. Despite this resistance, elements of these scenarios influenced strategy over time through parallel initiatives, partnerships, and innovation efforts. The article highlights how leaders can use scenario planning not only to imagine alternative futures but also to navigate resistance and embed strategic change in complex organizations.
A well-crafted strategy can drive an organization’s growth and position it as a market leader. However, repeated execution of the same strategy, especially following sustained success, can lead to risky strategic persistence. 1 As Mintzberg 2 cautioned, success can create a strategic mindset that blinds an organization to emerging threats and opportunities. Scenario planning provides a powerful tool for leadership to envision alternative futures, challenge assumptions, and rethink its strategic approach. But what happens when past success fosters a rigid commitment to existing strategies, making leadership resistant to exploring new possibilities?
Organizations that focus primarily on established competitors and current market conditions may overlook the disruptive potential of new entrants. 3 Zahra and Chaples 4 highlight several leadership pitfalls when assessing competition, including misjudging industry boundaries, relying on faulty assumptions about emerging players, and overestimating the strengths of visible competitors while neglecting less apparent threats. These cognitive biases can leave organizations vulnerable to shifts in the competitive landscape, reinforcing the need for scenario planning to challenge entrenched perspectives and expand strategic vision.
Through this autoethnographic study, our research initially aimed to understand what unique insights could emerge from a complete member researcher’s (CMR) deep, insider perspective on a scenario planning initiative within a rich organizational context. This initial research question was refined over time, with the final research question emerging from reflections on memories, journal entries, and data captured over 20 years. The context for this research is the 2006 scenario planning efforts at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) and the subsequent strategic efforts by the JSC Advanced Planning Office (APO). The unique perspective of a CMR in this organization offers insights into how leadership can navigate a strategy informed by scenarios while contending with strategic persistence and leadership resistance to emerging competitive threats.
From Destination-Driven to Long-Range Strategy Scenarios
Do you want a straight-line strategy from where we are today or one that anticipates the changing future environment? 2005 Scenario Planning Discussion of Johnson Space Center between the Center Director and the Scenario Planning Team Lead
NASA has a long history of successfully executing strategies that enable human space exploration, reinforcing a strategic paradigm 5 centered on its leadership role and unique position within the international space exploration ecosystem. Over the years, NASA has employed scenario planning to explore potential pathways for human spaceflight, which have helped navigate the uncertainties of shifting political, technological, and economic landscapes.
A historical example of NASA’s use of destination-driven scenario decision-making can be seen in the Apollo program, where three mission profiles were considered: Direct Ascent, Earth-Orbit Rendezvous, and Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous. The eventual selection of the Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous approach proved critical to achieving the historic moon landing in 1969. 6 Despite this success, NASA’s human spaceflight programs have consistently operated in an environment of high uncertainty. While Apollo benefited from sustained political commitment due to Cold War imperatives, this level of stability has been the exception rather than the norm. More often, NASA’s human spaceflight programs have faced frequent shifts in direction, driven by changes in presidential administration, congressional priorities, and budget constraints. 7
Under President George H.W. Bush, NASA was tasked with returning to the moon by 2010 and eventually reaching Mars. 8 In support of this vision, Mark Craig, the NASA Acting Assistant Administrator for Exploration and Director for Space Exploration, presented “A Scenario for Human Exploration of the Moon and Mars,” which proposed establishing a long-term lunar presence to develop the capabilities necessary for future Mars missions. 9 However, with the Bill Clinton administration, NASA’s focus shifted toward Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and the construction of the International Space Station (ISS). 10 When President George W. Bush took office in 2001, NASA once again turned its attention to the Moon and Mars: 11 next, the Barack Obama administration from 2008 onward shifted focus toward an asteroid mission. 12 More recently, under the Donald Trump and Joseph Biden administrations, the Artemis program has refocused NASA on lunar exploration with an eye toward Mars. 13 The challenge is that each of these programs involves decades of investments and technology development being successfully implemented; Unexpected shifts by each administration requires massive shifts in the agency.
As part of these evolving strategic priorities at the agency, the JSC aimed to support NASA’s destination-driven scenarios by developing the capabilities needed for human space exploration of increasing complexity. 14 However, in 2005, the newly appointed director of JSC envisioned the creation of a twenty-year strategy, an unprecedented endeavor. The uniqueness of this long-term perspective provided the newly established strategy office with an opportunity to explore scenarios that aligned JSC with shifting external conditions and capabilities rather than focusing solely on destination-driven planning.
To assess the director’s openness to alternative futures, the strategy office leadership posed a pivotal question: Did he prefer a straight-line strategy extrapolating from the present or one that anticipated and adapted to an evolving external environment? He chose the latter, emphasizing the need to address not only NASA’s programmatic goals but also the broader “complexities of the macroenvironment.” 15 At the time, these complexities included the uncertain growth of the commercial space market and the future distribution and funding of capabilities for human space exploration. In 2006, the global space market reached $251 billion, 16 with 25% of the total coming from the US government’s space budget and 6% funded by international government space budgets. By 2023, the total space market had doubled to $570 billion, 17 with US and international government space budgets accounting for 22% of the total.
This decision represented a significant departure from prior strategy efforts. The 2006 scenario planning process focused more explicitly on strengthening JSC’s long-term position and capabilities within an increasingly uncertain and competitive space industry rather than solely defining its role as supporting NASA Headquarters’ destination-driven objectives. The strategy office shared with the director that by embracing a broader strategic lens, JSC would better position itself to navigate external shifts, ensuring its continued relevance and leadership in human spaceflight.
Scenarios as Challengers to Embedded Mental Models
By looking beyond NASA’s traditional programmatic needs embedded in destination-driven scenarios, the 2006 scenario planning effort enabled JSC’s leadership to challenge its own mental models 18 about the agency’s future role. At the time, leadership largely assumed that NASA’s dominance in human space exploration would remain unchallenged over the next two decades. The prevailing belief was that commercial access to space would neither be profitable nor viable within that timeframe and that NASA’s leadership within the international space community would endure. In addition, the strategy mindset of the JSC leadership team, apart from the Center Director, focused on ensuring that it supported the programmatic needs of NASA’s human space exploration programs. The co-location of the programmatic leadership at JSC with the technical and support organizations reinforced the strategy mindset of the JSC leadership team on the importance of exploiting JSC’s current capabilities rather than exploring future options.
Tversky and Kahneman’s 19 research on decision heuristics and biases provides further insights into JSC leadership’s strategic persistence and resistance to alternative future scenarios. The work identifies systematic patterns in how individuals make judgments under uncertainty, particularly when dealing with complex decisions such as those in human space exploration. The JSC leadership’s reluctance to embrace alternative futures was influenced by cognitive biases as identified by Tversky and Kahneman:
Representativeness Heuristic: This bias explains how individuals evaluate the likelihood of an event based on its resemblance to established categories or previous experiences, which often results in flawed judgments. JSC leaders dismissed commercial spaceflight scenarios because their prior experiences indicated that only government-led programs were feasible. The lack of private-sector precedents deepened their skepticism.
Availability Heuristic: This bias suggests that people judge the likelihood of an event based on how easily examples come to mind. With no history of successful commercial human spaceflight, leaders struggled to perceive it as realistic. Their experience with NASA’s safety and operational criteria deepened their skepticism about the private-sector’s capabilities.
Anchoring Effect: This bias occurs when people rely too heavily on an initial reference point when making decisions. NASA’s legacy of government-controlled spaceflight influenced leadership’s view of risk. Historical tragedies, such as the Challenger and Columbia disasters, reinforced the belief that only NASA could ensure the safety of human spaceflight.
We build on existing research that examines the role of scenario planning in challenging leadership mental anchors and maps. 20 Bhatti’s 21 literature review of the scenario planning process found it to be a powerful tool for leaders, helping to counter decision-making biases, 22 foster organizational learning, 23 and understand complex situations. 24 Healey and Hodgkinson, 25 as well as Ramírez and Wilkinson, 26 found that scenario planning processes encouraged challenging the entrenched mental models. We extend the focus beyond the traditional development of scenarios by a leadership team to when internal thought leaders, as “remarkable thinkers,” 27 develop scenarios. Further, we consider leadership’s subsequent strategic actions when such a non-leadership team develops scenarios. This NASA case study identifies strategic initiatives, what Hirschhorn refers to as “campaigns,” 28 that enabled progress despite initial resistance.
Through alliance-building, supportive coalitions emerged, allowing key elements from the scenarios to be woven into the strategic plans of multiple JSC units. Targeted communication efforts played a crucial role in broadening the mental models of the JSC community. These efforts included engaging future leaders, specifically Generation Y employees in 2008, and using creative blogs to challenge the workforce’s assumptions about the future of human space exploration. In addition, by selectively investing in innovation projects, leaders could demonstrate transformative initiatives aligned with the envisioned futures outlined in the scenarios.
In this study, we draw on scenario planning literature, as well as organizational concepts of power, 29 paradox, 30 and bias 31 to shed light on how scenario planning can help reduce strategic persistence and shape the future of an organization. Even when a scenario planning effort appears to fail due to leadership resistance, as in this case, meaningful progress toward an envisioned future can still be achieved through parallel, strategic initiatives led by a committed strategy team and change agents within the organization. As Sherman and Chakraborty 32 found, even in the absence of formal incorporation of scenario outputs in the strategy of an organization, associated scenario processes and practices can assist key actors in envisioning and pursuing different futures.
Leadership Paradoxes and Power Dynamics in Scenario Planning Processes
Strategic paradoxes emerge from performance tensions at the organizational level, 33 often driven by the conflicting demands of multiple stakeholders, which result in competing strategies and goals. 34 These tensions are particularly relevant in scenario planning, where leadership must craft scenarios that are not only realistic but also navigate competing demands and stretch the organization’s mental models and assumptions. 35 At the outset, leaders face a critical paradox: They require a diverse team rooted in the organization’s culture, history, and capabilities while also possessing the ability to think expansively beyond those boundaries. Leaders who are adept at challenging conventions are ideal for such processes. Often seen as renegades, such leaders can drive initiatives that foster new capabilities and nudge the organization into new futures. 36
For the 2006 scenario planning effort at JSC, team members were selected based on four key criteria: (1) recognized connector with extensive networks beyond the organization, (2) mid-to senior-level professionals with leadership experience who experienced the cultural bias and strategic persistence of JSC without being entrenched in the mindset, (3) individuals known for employing innovative strategies to drive results, and (4) domain experts representing diverse areas of expertise. This approach aligns with Gordon’s 37 analysis of the Mont Fleur scenarios, which underscores how team composition profoundly shapes scenario development and subsequent strategic actions. By selecting individuals who brought external perspectives while remaining engaged with JSC’s core mission, the scenario team was better positioned to develop scenarios that addressed diverse and often conflicting stakeholder expectations.
Team members were identified through informal conversations with NASA employees, leveraging internal knowledge to pinpoint key influencers and connectors in a snowball pattern. The selection process began with identifying two recognized connectors whose extensive networks helped surface additional influencers who met the four selection criteria. As a result, the final scenario planning team was composed of individuals with the credibility, expertise, and strategic vision necessary to challenge leadership assumptions and explore alternative futures.
Leadership must also navigate the intricate web of power dynamics and politics inherent within organizational hierarchies, especially during scenario planning. Mintzberg’s 38 extensive work on managerial practices highlights how organizational politics are embedded in day-to-day operations and strategic processes. These political tensions often manifest in the competing priorities between different business units that focus on immediate operational demands and those of corporate leadership, 39 which must grapple with long-term uncertainties. Leaders engaged in scenario planning must strike a balance between these short-term practicalities and the broader, forward-looking objectives necessary to sustain the organization’s long-term competitiveness.
Recognizing and navigating these paradoxes and power dynamics present a critical challenge in scenario planning. With the benefit of 20 years of hindsight, these challenges 40 become more apparent. This article highlights how the deliberate selection of a team of influencers and connectors, individuals not entrenched in the leadership team’s strategic persistence, enables the development of scenarios that proved remarkably prescient. However, this decision came at a cost. Resistance is inevitable when scenarios challenge an organization’s entrenched power structures and leadership’s deeply held assumptions. Even the most well-crafted scenarios can face rejection when they disrupt the existing hierarchy, question long-standing strategic paradigms, or expose biases within leadership thinking. Understanding and anticipating these dynamics is crucial for ensuring that scenario planning efforts translate into meaningful strategic action rather than becoming sidelined by organizational inertia.
Methodology
Autoethnography
Frith and Tapinos 41 note that much of the scenario planning literature views the process as a black box, emphasizing outcomes rather than the mechanisms behind them. To derive meaningful insights, it is essential to examine the internal dynamics, biases, power structures, and strategic persistence that shape the process. Accessing this black box requires deep, firsthand engagement with an organization’s strategic activities and the advantage of insider research methodologies like autoethnography. Observational studies, interviews, and insider reflections offer pathways to uncover the often invisible forces that influence scenario planning outcomes.
In this retrospective analytical autoethnographic study, 42 we examine JSC’s 2006 scenario planning exercise, exploring the biases, strategic persistence, and power dynamics encountered when these scenarios were introduced to the leadership team. Drawing on 32 years of experience as a full-time agency employee focused on strategic development, and as the leader of the team who created these scenarios, the lead author provides autoethnographic reflections that offer critical insights into how the scenario team could effectively navigate leadership’s strategic persistence 43 and resistance to alternative futures.
Leveraging the lead author’s role as a CMR, this study provides a rare, in-depth examination of scenario planning within an organizational context. 44 The understanding of context gained through the author’s embeddedness in the organization (eighteen years before the 2006 scenario planning process) led him to seek an alternative team to create scenarios at JSC in an attempt to reduce bias and strategic persistence to developing scenarios. Reflecting on the subsequent two decades of successes and setbacks, this research reveals nuanced insights into the effectiveness of different leadership initiatives aimed at navigating resistance and fostering strategic adaptation.
Anderson
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defines analytic autoethnography as
ethnographic work in which the researcher is (1) a full member in the research group or setting, (2) visible as such a member in the researcher’s published texts, and (3) committed to an analytic research agenda focused on improving theoretical understandings of broader social phenomena.
Membership within a research setting varies by degree of immersion, as distinguished by Adler and Adler 46 who classify it into three types: peripheral, active, and complete membership. The highest level of immersion, the complete membership researcher (CMR), is further divided into opportunistic and convert CMRs. Opportunistic CMRs are already members of the organization before the research begins, while convert CMRs integrate into the group during the research process and eventually become insiders. Similarly, Brannick and Coghlan 47 define insider research as “research by complete members of organizational systems and communities in and on their own organizations.”
The lead author exemplifies the opportunistic CMR, having been a full member of NASA’s JSC for a long time before initiating this research. His extensive contextual knowledge of the organization was shaped by multiple leadership roles, including astronaut instructor, leadership of technology laboratories, deputy of the Advanced Planning Office (APO), and strategy development lead, as well as fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems by commercializing NASA technology. While overseeing advanced technology labs, he articulated an ambitious vision for the future of mission control, challenging technologists to develop innovations that could support a lunar community by 2076. 48 Recognizing his strategic foresight, JSC leadership tasked him and another senior leader in early 2005 with proposing the creation of a dedicated strategy office. Established later that year, the APO appointed him as deputy director. Soon after, with the arrival of a new center director, he was entrusted with developing a 20-year strategic vision for JSC (Table 1). In this role, he led the 2006 scenario planning initiative, shaping the Center’s long-term strategy.
Strategic Timeline.
Beginning in 2013, the second author collaborated with JSC executives to assess and guide organizational changes, support interventions to drive the change process, and facilitate strategic discussions about NASA’s future. 51
Chang 52 identifies three types of data essential for autoethnographic research: personal memory, self-reflection, and external data. The lead author systematically organized personal memories into a timeline of key events preceding the scenario planning exercise and subsequent strategic initiatives (Table 1). These recollections were cross-referenced with archived presentations, emails, and reports spanning the period from 2005 to 2020, providing a longitudinal perspective on how decision-making evolved over time. The authors also examined scenario planning literature to evaluate how this NASA case study could contribute to both academic research and practical applications in strategic foresight.
In addition, the lead author analyzed self-reflections documented in a personal journal kept during the scenario planning process. Reports, meeting notes, and email exchanges with team members and NASA leadership provided further insights into the reception of the scenarios and the broader strategic planning efforts. These communications captured not only the author’s evolving perspectives but also the reactions and feedback from colleagues and senior leaders, illuminating the internal discourse around NASA’s long-term strategic direction.
External data sources complemented this analysis by providing further context. NASA’s official policies, strategy documents, and programmatic decisions were examined to assess how scenario planning influenced, or failed to influence, JSC’s trajectory. News articles and external media interviews with key stakeholders further contextualized NASA’s strategic shifts in response to emerging industry trends and policy changes.
Refining the Research Focus
Our initial compass to guide this autoethnographic study was to explore what unique insights could emerge from a complete member researcher’s deep, insider perspective on a scenario planning initiative within its rich organizational context. Through an iterative process of analyzing the data against the existing scenario planning literature, our research question evolved. Initial findings pointed to the challenge of overcoming cognitive biases in scenario planning. However, a deeper examination of journal entries, meeting notes, and strategic reflections revealed an interplay between bias, strategic persistence, and power dynamics that arose from the decision to engage a team outside the leadership team (but internal to the organization) to create the scenarios. This realization refined our focus to a central question: How can scenarios developed outside the leadership team shape strategy when confronted with organizational bias, strategic persistence, and power dynamics?
Scenario Planning at NASA
Background
In 2005, NASA’s Johnson Space Center held a pivotal role in leading the nation’s human spaceflight endeavors. It oversaw three primary programs: the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, and the nascent Constellation Program, tasked with returning humans to the moon and eventually exploring Mars. In addition, JSC spearheaded the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, a pioneering effort to engage private-sector partnerships in providing cargo services to the International Space Station. As home to NASA’s astronauts and Mission Control, JSC’s influence within NASA was vast, controlling key aspects of program leadership and funding across the agency.
At that time, under the administration of President George W. Bush, the future of JSC appeared secure. However, the critical question was whether the funding would scale to meet the ambitious objectives of the Constellation Program. In November 2005, Mike Coats, an experienced astronaut from the private industry, became the tenth center director. He tasked the newly established APO with developing a 20-year strategy that would ensure JSC remained at the forefront of human space exploration, aiming to repeat the historic moment when the first word spoken by astronauts landing on Mars would be, like the Moon landing, “Houston.”
Coats recognized that any long-term strategy would need to adapt to the inevitable shifts in US presidential administrations and their fluctuating priorities for space exploration. At this pivotal moment, the APO posed a critical question to the director: Did he want a 20-year straight-line strategy rooted in the present or one that accounted for an uncertain and evolving future?
Reflecting on that exchange, González said, “I recall how embedded within that question was an implicit recognition of the tension between reinforcing existing biases and strategic persistence or embracing the ambiguity of future possibilities through scenario planning.” 53 The director’s decision to pursue the latter approach filled me with excitement. However, I had yet to grasp the extent to which this choice would challenge the cultural biases and entrenched power dynamics.
Looking back, I now see how crucial that moment was, not just as a decision point but as an inflection point for my own understanding of organizational resistance to change. Had we followed the default path, the same familiar team of deputy directors (usual suspects) would have been tasked with this effort, bringing a deeply ingrained and inertial strategic persistence shaped by past successes. Instead, we intentionally chose to break from employing the team of “usual suspects.” Rather than reinforcing established perspectives, we selected a diverse team of leaders known for their unconventional thinking and extensive external networks,
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individuals capable of challenging assumptions rather than reinforcing them.
Scenarios Developed Outside of the Leadership Team
During the team kickoff on February 21, 2006, the APO team lead presented the six Scenario Building Blocks to the eight-member scenario planning team. These Building Blocks were: (1) Trends, (2) Limiting assumptions, (3) Core strengths, not Core capabilities, (4) Key factors that determine our destiny, (5) SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis, and (6) External assessment. This information was to be gathered and analyzed by the scenario planning team. 55 Each of the eight team members was tasked with conducting comprehensive research into key drivers of change, including Space Access, Business Environment and Commercialization, US Government, International Space, Military Space, NASA and Exploration Emphasis, and Information Technology and Education. Initially, these drivers were refined through discussions between the lead author and the scenario planning team’s co-lead. Following the team kickoff meeting, where each member contributed their perspectives, the list was finalized to include the already-mentioned drivers.
Simultaneously, the APO carried out a SWOT analysis with JSC’s deputy directors and commissioned an external assessment to gauge perceptions of JSC from NASA’s other centers, universities, government agencies, and aerospace companies. When discrepancies were identified between the findings from the SWOT analysis and the external assessment, a seventh step was added to conduct an internal assessment, capturing the perspectives of non-managerial employees at JSC.
Two key drivers emerged from the data: the growing influence of commercial space and the rise of international space capabilities. These disruptive forces were expected to challenge NASA’s leadership in space exploration and redefine the role of JSC within the broader space ecosystem.
The scenario planning team followed the Trilemma Triangle structure outlined by the Shell Global Scenarios to 2025. 56 In these scenarios, Shell considered that “the energy scene is being transformed under the impact of a triple discontinuity reflecting qualitative changes in the three forces of the apexes of the Trilemma Triangle.” Shell explored the trade-offs that occurred between the two apexes of the triangle. Similarly, the scenario planning team first explored the trade-offs between Environmental Factors, the Mars Exploration Lead, and Good to Great. 57
As the scenario planning conversation incorporated the findings from the external assessments, Mars Exploration Leadership was identified as the overall vision for the scenarios, and the Internal NASA Environment replaced its position on the apex. The Environmental Factors apex was also seen as too broad and was replaced by the forces due to the External NASA Environment (including commercial and international space capabilities). In addition, during the scenario planning activity, several directorates utilized Jim Collins’s “Good to Great” as a framework for their strategy formulation. The scenario planning team decided to focus the Good to Great apex on the Internal JSC Environment (the strategy activities occurring within the JSC environment by Directorate Level Organizations or DLO).
One of the scenario planning team’s desired outcomes from the scenarios was to provide a framework for deciding which competencies to develop within the JSC and which ones to divest from or acquire. The team recognized that the NASA Administrator’s emphasis on “10 healthy centers,” with each center contributing expertise and technology to the Constellation Program, would influence the overall scenarios. With these insights in mind, the scenario team developed three potential futures 58 for JSC, each aimed at ensuring the center director’s vision of JSC’s essential role in the Mars exploration mission. The scenarios created were equally plausible yet distinct, as emphasized by Lindgren and Bandhold, 59 Ramírez and Wilkinson, 60 and Burt and Nair. 61
• Scenario 1: Converging Paths—Program Management Excellence
In this scenario, JSC remains the premier hub for managing NASA’s spaceflight programs. It specializes in program and project management, procurement, and facility operations while reducing its focus on technical disciplines unrelated to systems engineering and safety. Opportunities for external partnerships are limited, with JSC becoming an elite institution where top-tier professionals from other centers and industries come to advance or complete their careers.
• Scenario 2: Stay the Course—Operations Excellence
Here, JSC continues as NASA’s lead for human mission operations, expanding its role to include planetary surface operations. Training programs evolve to integrate human-robotic operations, and JSC retains its expertise in sustaining engineering and flight medicine. However, vehicle design and advanced technology development are scaled back, as are partnerships outside of NASA.
• Scenario 3: The Higher Path—Human Systems and Vehicle Excellence
JSC emerges as the world leader in human exploration systems, specializing in human-vehicle integration, human factors, and surface operations. It forges significant partnerships with research centers and international agencies, focusing on innovation and exploration medicine. Mission Control’s role evolves to manage surface operations and long-duration missions, supported by a distributed network of research centers.
Although each scenario was designed to be equally plausible, 62 the scenario planning team gravitated toward the third scenario (Higher Path). This scenario envisioned JSC as the central integrator of human space exploration capabilities, fostering collaboration across the commercial space sector and international partners. At the time, we recognized this preference as a potential bias that reflected our aspiration for JSC to evolve beyond its traditional role as a government-led spaceflight center.
Looking back, the integrator role proved to be the most enduring and transformative outcome of the scenario planning process. Over the following years, JSC increasingly positioned itself as a hub for collaboration, forging strategic partnerships within the aerospace community and across various industries, including energy, medicine, advanced manufacturing, agribusiness, and maritime technologies. The unifying thread across JSC’s most successful initiatives was the shift toward a more open, partnership-driven model 63 that expanded NASA’s ability to leverage the strengths of a broader innovation ecosystem.
Ultimately, this movement was the most enduring success of the scenario planning effort. While the scenarios themselves could not dictate the future, they planted the seeds for a cultural and strategic shift that enabled JSC to embrace a spirit of partnership. In hindsight, our bias toward the Higher Path was not merely wishful thinking; it reflected an emerging reality that would open the JSC to the changing future shape of human space exploration.
Leadership Team’s Scenario Development
The three original scenarios, Converging Paths, Stay the Course, and Higher Path, were initially presented only to the center director, deputy director, and associate director. However, they were notably absent from the 2006 JSC Strategic Retreat. This omission stemmed from concerns raised by the leadership team before the retreat regarding the origin of the scenarios; it had been developed by a team of “remarkable” thinkers 64 rather than leadership itself. As one leader shared during a conversation in his office, “We are the directors. We own the strategy and decide the future direction of the center.”
Consistent with findings from Healey and Hodgkinson, 65 Phadnis et al., 66 and Schoemaker, 67 the leadership team wanted direct involvement in crafting the scenarios, even though this approach was more likely to reinforce existing assumptions rather than challenge them. This sentiment was acknowledged during the retreat when the lead author openly recognized the expertise of the leadership team and its role in defining JSC’s direction: “We put the scenarios on the back burner because we wanted experts to design our future, for the direction to be designed here in this room.”
Although the original scenarios were set aside, the retreat provided an opportunity for the leadership team to create its own. Organized into smaller teams, leaders were encouraged to stretch their thinking when envisioning JSC’s future. However, unlike the first scenario planning team’s approach, which incorporated external market assessments to capture the evolving commercial space landscape, the leadership team did not conduct an external analysis. Instead, external facilitators and a guest speaker were brought in to broaden perspectives and challenge assumptions.
One external voice at the retreat was Michael Mandelbaum, professor and director of the American Foreign Policy Program at Johns Hopkins University and author of The Ideas that Conquered the World. His presentation challenged JSC’s established worldview, emphasizing that organizations must embrace new ideas and adaptability to remain relevant: “The public will be supportive of NASA as long as it sees it pursuing new frontiers, pursuing the American spirit of exploring. Support will dwindle if they see NASA doing the same thing over and over again.”
The leadership team’s scenarios remained deeply rooted in strategic persistence despite efforts to expand such thinking; Scenarios were destination-driven, reinforcing NASA’s traditional leadership role rather than exploring transformational shifts. The 2025 scenarios, as documented in the retreat notes, 68 reflected a future still shaped by NASA’s historical successes rather than the emerging commercial space market or international collaboration with other parties as equal partners, which did not incorporate key drivers that had been identified in the earlier scenarios. The differences in assumptions and perspectives between the two scenario planning efforts are summarized in Table 2.
Comparison of Scenarios.
Gonzalez’s personal journal entries from that time reflect frustration by the leadership team’s approach, especially minimization of the commercial space sector’s impact. At the time, Gonzalez focused on how different their scenarios were from those developed by the “remarkable” thinkers. However, with the benefit of reflection, Gonzalez saw the early signs of the JSC embracing the integrator role emerging within those discussions. The seeds of change, though subtle, had been planted and, over time, they would take root in both the JSC’s strategic actions as well as leadership thinking.
Seeding a Strategy
Initially, there was strong resistance to the integrator role within JSC leadership. The prevailing mindset was that JSC should retain all competencies necessary for human space exploration rather than seek to obtain select capabilities from the commercial space sector and integrate these into NASA programs. Leadership was hesitant to cede control over capabilities it viewed as essential to NASA’s mission.
However, as the leadership team built upon the scenarios developed at the retreat, discussions gravitated toward themes that aligned with the integrator role. Key strategic concepts emerged, such as:
“Integrated Value Network—Looking Beyond JSC”;
Positioning JSC as a “hub” and “integrator”;
Strengthening JSC’s role in systems integration across human spaceflight capabilities.
These discussions were further fueled by a pivotal question posed by the APO leadership team: “What message do we want to communicate externally? Are we an Operations Center, Development Center, Research Center, Technology Center, Program Management Center, System Integrator, or all of the above?”
This reflective inquiry challenged the mindset of viewing JSC as the sole provider of spaceflight expertise and encouraged the consideration of a collaborative model that incorporated external partnerships. One of the tangible outcomes of this evolving mindset was a key action identified in the strategic retreat’s presentation summary:
Identify the strategic alliances the Center should pursue for current and future work, including Lunar and Mars precursor missions, and establish a mechanism for capturing the full set of alliances pursued across the organization. Determine the appropriate organization(s) to lead these future alliances.
This action laid the foundation for a more deliberate partnership strategy, a cornerstone of the integrator role envisioned in The Higher Path—Human Systems and Vehicle Excellence scenario.
The commitment to strategic alliances ultimately led to the Strategic Alliances Strategies and Processes Benchmarking Study, 69 which influenced the transformation of the APO into the Strategic Opportunities and Partnership Development (SOPD) Office. 70 This transformation signified a paradigm shift and JSC began to embrace the integrator role, leveraging external partnerships to strengthen NASA’s leadership in human spaceflight.
Discussion: Strategic Paradoxes and Power Struggles
Navigating Conflicting Priorities
In the 2006 and 2007 strategic retreats, an apparent tension emerged in how technology development and investment were discussed and prioritized. This tension between long-term capability-building and short-term, immediate programmatic needs underscored the paradox that scenario planning often reveals.
At the conclusion of the 2006 retreat, an action was proposed to focus research and development investments on technologies required both inside and outside of JSC’s programs. This acknowledged the need to cultivate future capabilities beyond immediate programmatic priorities. The action’s scope included:
Determining the appropriate organization to focus JSC’s Internal Research & Development activities, including research conducted within JSC and externally funded efforts (e.g., SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research), STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer), Grants, IR&D (Internal Research & Development) projects, Seed Fund, Red Planet, and Program-funded research).
However, during the 2007 retreat, discussions around technology investment shifted toward a more program-driven focus. A program manager vocalized a widely held view among program leaders: “If an organization’s workforce is engaged in projects not funded by the program, we will look elsewhere for that expertise.”
This sentiment underscored the power dynamic inherent in JSC’s matrixed structure. Program managers, who controlled most of the budget, prioritized investments directly supporting their immediate operational needs. From their perspective, technology development should enhance existing programs, rather than being driven by speculative future capabilities. Scenario processes are not immune to the actions of powerful actors in terms of controlling agendas and resources, as the long-standing political perspective on organizations suggests. 71
The Chief Technology Officer Role: Balancing the Paradox
Before this tension at the 2007 retreat, the initial 2006 scenarios had already acknowledged that JSC’s success in 2025 would require investing in both current programs and future capabilities. The JSC navigated this paradox by creating the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) role. The CTO was strategically positioned within both the Engineering Directorate and the APO, bridging the gap between:
Programmatic needs—Ensuring that technology investments continued to support the immediate goals of Shuttle, ISS, and Constellation.
Future capabilities—Maintaining a forward-looking technology strategy aligned with the Integrator role envisioned in the Higher Path scenario.
This structural innovation allowed JSC to sustain a dual focus: addressing near-term mission success while positioning for long-term leadership in human spaceflight. As O’Reilly and Tushman 72 suggested, such integrative roles and ambidextrous mindset among leaders is crucial for ensuring both optimization for the present and exploration for the future.
The Role of Scenarios in Surfacing Strategic Paradoxes
By design, scenario planning introduces and highlights strategic paradoxes as scenarios are meant to be equally plausible yet distinct, often requiring competing capabilities, allowing organizations to grapple with divergent futures simultaneously.
The programmatic needs versus future capabilities paradox was evident in JSC’s simultaneous consideration of three roles during the first retreat:
The Integrator role (Higher Path scenario) emphasized collaboration and future capabilities.
The Operational role (Converging Paths scenario) focused on execution and maintaining existing expertise.
The Programmatic role (Stay the Course scenario) reinforced JSC’s traditional structure of supporting the programs.
While the 2006 retreat encouraged an open exploration of all three roles, the 2007 retreat revealed how power dynamics constrained that exploration. Program leaders, who held budgetary influence, pushed discussions toward an either/or mindset, favoring short-term programmatic needs over broader institutional transformation.
This shift was reflected in the 2007 Senior Staff Retreat White Paper, 73 where a program manager stated: “If you are going to cut, do not cut on the business, Human Resources, or Public Affairs Organizations. I can always buy engineering expertise at other centers.”
Either/or mindsets, engendered by the use of power by influential actors, are detrimental to the organization’s ability to balance the competing demands of optimizing in the present and exploring the future. 74
Scenario Planning as a Catalyst for Strategic Reflection
Looking back, the positive outcomes of JSC’s scenario planning effort were not defined by unanimous agreement on any single scenario. Instead, its impact lay in its ability to:
Despite resistance to the scenario planning outputs, the scenario planning process supported initiatives such as grassroots innovation pilot projects, crowdsourcing initiatives, and partnerships with industry, providing proof of concept for new ways of doing things at NASA. These new approaches fostered the development of new capabilities and ultimately led to new strategic alignments within the agency. 77 JSC’s experience showed that even when leadership did not fully embrace a scenario, the process itself catalyzed strategic awareness and action. 78
Records from the 2006 and 2007 retreats, along with autoethnographic reflections, reveal that anticipating JSC’s evolving role in the commercial space era was initially met with skepticism. Still, in retrospect, it was one of the most important conversations JSC could have had.
Implications for Scenarios Practice: Key Challenges Influencing Strategic Impact
JSC’s experience highlights three critical factors leaders must consider from the outset. First, leaders must assess how an organization’s strategic persistence, rooted in its past successes, will influence its receptiveness to new scenarios. Organizations that have long thrived under a particular strategic framework may instinctively resist futures that deviate from their historical trajectory. Second, cultural biases embedded within the leadership team shape how scenarios are perceived, debated, and ultimately integrated into strategic planning. A conscious recognition of these biases is essential to ensuring the scenario process does not merely reinforce existing assumptions. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, leaders must consider the organization’s power dynamics before initiating scenario planning. Power structures are often deeply entrenched, resistant to change, and will actively obstruct strategic shifts emerging from the scenario work.
Strategic Persistence
One of the most significant challenges the APO faced was the deliberate decision to address strategic persistence by assembling a team of remarkable thinkers, 79 individuals recognized for their external perspectives, unconventional insights, and ability to challenge entrenched assumptions. This marked a departure from JSC’s traditional approach, where experienced deputy directors typically led strategic analyses and discussions. The outcomes of such conventional processes were often predictable, reinforcing past strategies that had historically led to success. The strategy office anticipated that if the same leadership cohort developed the scenarios, its strategic persistence (i.e., the tendency to extend past successes into future strategy) would limit its ability to engage with the uncertainties and turbulent possibilities of the next 20 years.
However, this choice came with a calculated risk—resistance from leadership. While leadership engagement throughout the scenario development process is critical for challenging mental models and ensuring buy-in, 80 intentionally distancing formal leadership from the initial stages allowed prioritizing frame-breaking insights over immediate alignment with leadership’s existing perspectives. This trade-off was not made lightly. On the one hand, it enabled the creation of expansive, forward-looking scenarios that were ultimately prescient, correctly anticipating shifts in the space industry two decades into the future. On the other hand, it introduced friction when presenting these scenarios to leadership, as they diverged from established mental models and strategic expectations.
Navigating Resistance to Change: While empowering unconventional thinkers strengthened the scenario process, it also amplified the challenge of integrating those insights into the organization’s long-term strategy. The very factors that made the scenarios so visionary also made them more challenging for leadership to immediately embrace.
To address this resistance, the Strategic Planning Office sought to challenge and reshape the broader community’s mindset regarding JSC’s future. Through a series of blog posts, APO encouraged dialogue about the disruptive forces shaping human space exploration. Through an online blog, a serially released graphic novel 81 shared a future vision, capturing how today’s decisions would enable JSC’s leadership as the integrator of human space exploration. Another particularly impactful blog on ambidextrous organizations 82 sparked a multi-year collaboration between this article’s authors, which encouraged, through a series of workshops, talks, and interviews, JSC’s ambidextrous strategy. 83 This approach balanced institutional priorities with programmatic responsibilities, developing competencies for the future while effectively accomplishing ongoing projects.
Leadership Lesson: Leaders can address strategic persistence either directly or indirectly. This can be done by:
Cultural Bias
JSC’s culture, forged over nearly four decades of leadership in human space exploration, presented a challenge to scenario planning. Leadership had been shaped by the harsh environment of space and the risk-averse nature of human spaceflight, where failure was not an option and rigorous oversight was paramount. This deeply ingrained mindset influenced how emerging players in the commercial space industry were perceived. Many senior leaders were skeptical that private companies could develop a sustainable business model, let alone match NASA’s expertise in safely launching humans into orbit.
This skepticism translated into resistance when the scenarios highlighted commercial space as a significant disruptor. The prevailing belief was that NASA’s role in human spaceflight was irreplaceable, a conviction reinforced by decades of government-led missions. This resistance became evident during a strategic retreat with the JSC senior leadership team, where the discussion turned to the viability of commercial spaceflight over the next 20 years. One senior leader quipped: “As long as the laws of physics stay as they are, commercial space can never make access to space safe enough for everyone.”
This statement encapsulated the cultural bias that permeated JSC’s leadership—a steadfast belief that space access was, and always would be, an inherently dangerous endeavor requiring NASA’s decades-long accumulated expertise and oversight. This belief underscored our challenge: how to proceed with strategies built upon scenarios that disrupted deeply held assumptions without triggering outright dismissal.
Overcoming Bias to Embrace New Strategic Realities: This cultural bias necessitated ongoing adaptation in strategic initiatives. Rather than directly challenging these beliefs, we had to find ways to recognize leadership’s concerns in the strategy conversations, acknowledging their expertise while still pushing the boundaries of what was considered possible and sowing the seeds to see things differently. This approach required launching pilot projects with the goal that each mission success 84 would prepare the organization for a future that, despite initial skepticism, would ultimately unfold much as our scenarios anticipated.
In this context, APO launched the Blue Moon initiative, which encouraged grassroots innovation, while the Sandbox project provided engineers with the resources to prototype ideas beyond PowerPoint slides. This hands-on approach to innovation empowered JSC engineers to experiment with new concepts and technologies, driving a shift toward rapid prototyping and an agile mindset. In addition, a group of 30 Generation Y employees were tasked with envisioning JSC’s future 20 years ahead. 85 Their resulting vision aligned with the initial 2025 scenarios developed in 2006, strengthening their buy-in and ensuring the next generation was actively engaged in shaping the JSC’s trajectory.
Leadership Lesson: Long-term strategy requires a cultural shift, not just structural changes. Leaders should:
Power Dynamics and Paradoxes
JSC’s matrixed structure, which balances programmatic and institutional funding, inherently shapes power dynamics that influence scenario planning. Programs such as the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and Constellation commanded most of JSC’s budget and decision-making authority. In this context, institutional funding, allocated for operational support and future capability investments, remained comparatively constrained. This structure created tension between “making programs successful” (as captured in the center director’s opening presentation in the 2006 Strategic Retreat) and building long-term institutional capabilities.
This strategic paradox was evident in the contrast between JSC’s 2006 and 2007 Strategic Retreats. In 2006, the focus was on innovation and long-term capability-building, aligning with the exploratory nature of the scenario planning process. However, by 2007, programmatic demands had shifted the conversation toward immediate execution, sidelining discussions on broader institutional investments. Instead of striking a balance, the retreat’s discussions framed the tension as an either/or choice that ultimately favored program-driven priorities at the expense of long-term strategic adaptability.
These power dynamics posed a fundamental challenge to scenario planning and subsequent strategy development. The scenario team envisioned JSC as an adaptive, forward-looking organization that embraced collaboration with commercial space and other industries. However, translating this vision into action required institutional investments that relied on the Center Management and Operations (CM&O) budget, a funding stream not directly tied to programmatic priorities. Without program alignment, securing CM&O funding for these initiatives was unlikely, further reinforcing the strategic persistence of JSC’s programmatic leadership.
The struggle to balance immediate programmatic imperatives with long-term strategic adaptability is a recurring theme in organizations with strong operational legacies, as well as the success of these legacies. 86 At JSC, this power dynamic influenced the initial reception of the scenarios and shaped the strategic decisions made in the following years. The challenge was not merely financial but cultural, structural, and deeply embedded in the decision-making processes.
Addressing Power Dynamics: Building External Alliances to Drive Innovation: JSC’s external partnerships played an essential role in breaking through internal inertia. In 2012, JSC and the Houston Technology Center, supported by the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, launched the JSC Acceleration Center. 87 This partnership not only fostered technology transfer between NASA engineers and local entrepreneurs but also exposed NASA engineers to the entrepreneurs’ rapid prototyping mindset. However, a presidential administration directive to reduce NASA’s physical footprint delayed broader ambitions to establish a JSC Innovation Park. Nearly 20 years later, with a shift in the political landscape, renewed efforts are underway to foster collaboration with Texas A&M University as part of JSC’s Exploration Park. 88
JSC leveraged its partnerships with the Greater Houston Partnership, Houston First, and the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership (BAHEP) to sustain momentum. The 2015 SpaceCom Conference brought together leaders from space, energy, medical, maritime, and agricultural sectors, reinforcing JSC’s role as a cross-industry innovation hub.
Leadership Lesson: Leaders must appreciate and navigate power dynamics within and outside their organizations in scenario processes, as well as broader strategy-making. Effective strategies include:
Summary of Key Insights
This autoethnographic study helps to shed light on the complexities of scenario planning by examining the dynamics that emerge when non-leadership groups generate scenarios and the challenges of integrating these visions into strategic decision-making. By doing so, we respond to Chermack’s 89 call for methodological diversity through our autoethnographic study as a CMR role and engage with Frith and Tapinos 90 perspective on scenario planning as a “black box” process.
Our analysis highlights the paradox of developing scenarios with a team unbound by the leadership team’s biases and strategic persistence while simultaneously navigating leadership skepticism. Unlike traditional models that emphasize leadership-driven scenario creation, such as those described by Healey and Hodgkinson, 91 Phadnis et al., 92 and Schoemaker, 93 our findings reveal the distinct advantages and challenges of involving a non-leadership team for scenario creation. While this approach can initially provoke resistance, it also sows the seeds of change and stimulates long-term strategic actions that broaden an organization’s capabilities. Leaders engaging in scenario planning must thoughtfully consider the fundamental question: What type of future are we willing to explore?
Furthermore, this study sheds light on the intricate power dynamics that shape the transition from “scenarios to strategies.” 94 When scenario-based insights intersect with financial decision-making, particularly in resource-constrained environments, internal stakeholders with budgetary control often exert significant influence over strategic direction. This dynamic was particularly evident at JSC, where programmatic priorities frequently dictated funding allocations. Leaders should recognize that this interdependence between internal stakeholders and strategic planning can either constrain or accelerate transformative initiatives, depending on whether those in power can adopt a future and change-oriented perspective.
Our findings also contribute to the broader scenario planning literature by offering an insider perspective on power structures within an organization with an illustrious history that was facing a radically changing context. While much of the existing research remains at a conceptual level, 95 our ethnographic approach sheds light on the nuanced organizational and interpersonal interactions that shape scenario implementation. Future research can further investigate how power dynamics influence scenario adoption across different types of organizations, with varying levels of hierarchy, such as corporate enterprises, public agencies, and cross-sector collaborations.
This study offers insights into the interplay between scenario planning, leadership buy-in, and power dynamics within a complex environment of an industry-leading organization. By revealing the opportunities and obstacles inherent in engaging unconventional teams, we provide an insider perspective on how scenario planning can shape an organization’s strategic trajectory. As this approach continues to gain traction, understanding the intersections of leadership bias, strategic persistence, and internal power structures will be critical for advancing scenario research and practice.
Footnotes
Notes
Author Biographies
Steven Gonzalez is a retired strategy executive at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, a Venture Partner at Seldor Capital, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Warwick Business School (email:
Loizos Heracleous is a Professor of Strategy and Organization at Warwick Business School and an Associate Fellow at the University of Oxford (email: