Introduction to CIB

Abstract

Scenarios have proven their worth for decades as an instrument for preparing for uncertain future developments. The chapter argues that scenarios often cannot be adequately created with creativity techniques or with computational models because the interrelationships between the formative factors are too complex for mental processing and, on the other hand, can only be described qualitatively. Therefore, in many cases, a user of the scenario technique must resort to methods that can analyze qualitative influence networks and derive consistent scenarios from them. For tasks of this kind, Cross-Impact Balance Analysis (CIB) has proven its effectiveness for more than 20 years and has established itself internationally as a method for qualitative system and scenario analysis. Finally, the chapter explains the structure of the book and provides guidance on its use.