The NSW Trend Atlas is a digital, self-service platform helping the NSW Government better prepare for an unpredictable future. Combining automation and curation, this newly updated platform provides rich insights on emerging trends so that government teams can better anticipate challenges and opportunities.
This trusted strategic intelligence service was developed by the Shaping Futures’ Strategic Foresight team in The Cabinet Office who were motivated by the increased awareness of uncertainty in future operating environments made apparent by COVID-19. Unable to embed themselves across the entire public sector, the small team combined their trend analysis techniques, horizon scanning and scenario building tools to build the Trend Atlas.
Recently included as a case study in the Observatory Public Sector Innovation (OECD), the NSW Trend Atlas is innovating by reducing research time, avoiding duplication and breaking down information silos in NSW Government and other Australian government agencies.
Who is the NSW Trend Atlas for?
The platform has been made with policy people in mind but is helpful for teams and leaders across all government sectors faced with complex questions when designing future-solutions.
The Trend Atlas might, for example, support a Policy Officer researching factors contributing to the effects of technological mega-trends on access to learning in remote communities. Or a Communications person generating an urgent briefing document examining the social, economic and environmental impacts of climate change policies in NSW.
The platform is particularly beneficial for discovering connections between related topics or issues across diverse areas. Teams in Planning and Infrastructure might turn to the Trend Atlas when developing solutions for contexts in which population, demographics, and technology meet. Irrespective of discipline, this platform is proving valuable for government decision-makers planning for future challenges in an organised, systematic way.
How does The NSW Trend Atlas work?
The NSW Trend Atlas is based on strategic foresight, a systematic, design and planning-orientated discipline that employs ideas and methodologies about the future to anticipate change. Governments around the world such as in Singapore, European Union, Japan, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, South Korea, and Canada are using similar methods when long-term planning.
Unlike Google, the NSW Trend Atlas is an ad-free compilation of proven information vetted by policy professionals and acts as a kind of way-finding service that plugs people into the right information at the right time. By offering a variety of tools, each underpinned by specific strategic foresight methodologies, the Trend Atlas meets users at their level of capability (from newcomer to expert) with each tool on the Trend Atlas advancing users in their foresight capability journey.
For those looking to read more broadly in their domain, the Horizon scanning tool contains a vetted selection of future-informed articles and reports from across government, news media and civil society sources.
For those looking to focus on the patterns of change at work in their domain, the Trend Explorer tool and Trend Card allow an in-depth, trend-by-trend approach. From this point, a user can then discover the interactions between trends related to their domain, with the Trend Relationship tool.
For those ready to engage with multiple opportunities and challenges of varying impact and time scales, the Trend Prioritisation tool provides the strategic overview of the intersection of multiple trends within their domain.
For comprehensive grounding of a project in current planning data on baselines and projections, the common planning assumptions (CPA) tool integrates trusted NSW planning resources with the trends directly at work in each of the CPA domains.
What people are saying
“I’ve been in strategic intelligence for more than 10 years and I have never seen something with such a comprehensive and useable structure for analysis.” Intelligence Analyst (Australian Government Agency).
“Blown away by the content and design. We would love to be at this stage of trend analysis and monitoring.” Software Development Lead (Australian Government Agency).
“This is fantastic - found a trend card that will be key in the business case we are currently building.” Product Manager (NSW Government Agency).
Interested in accessing The NSW Trend Atlas? Connect with the Shaping Futures team at shapingfutures@tco.nsw.gov.au for more information.