Abstract

Normative scenarios are scenarios that depict preferable future visions without transgressing the realm of the possible. Ideally, they make the values, attitudes and the mindset of their authors explicit, and they can therefore be used as a starting point for discussions about visions and values. They are narrative since they are told like a short story.

This paper describes how normative narrative scenarios are constructed and used, taking the scenarios for the German HighTech Strategy as the most prominent example. According to the experience of the authors, normative narrative scenarios are optimally generated in a collective, participatory process with seven or eight separate stages, definition and bounding (focus of the scenario), vision workshop (developing the central visionary ideas), elaboration of the scenario exposé (background, content, general plot idea), construction of the story board (detailed plot with protagonists), writing the scenario, enriching the scenario through feedback with workshop participants, interpreting the scenario (e. g. within a special workshop), and, if intended, publication. Main difficulties and challenges in each step are discussed, as well as ways to communicate and use the scenarios

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