On this picture you see the whole field for future studies:

Ranging from the past where you can get resources to a multitude of futures. How can you endeavor the cone of possibilities? Use exploratory and normative research methods.

The first choice in general are exploratory methods, methods which forecast foreward into the future. Exploratory procedures are the ones emanating from an existing situation, and which prolong things under certain assumptions into the future. Scenarios that result from it are therefore extensions of the present into the future.

No wonder then that exploratory methods are foremost quantitative approaches, therefore things ideally adapted to calculations, producing countless numbers, like projections, trend calculations, probability analysis.

You can add other methods such as trend impact analysis and cross impact analysis, which describe what new trends would change in this steady way forward, and how different parts of the future influence each other.

Exploratory methods start with the present, with the pre-conditions, beliefs and social or technological possibilities which already exist. The same in your private field. If you think about a savings plan for retirement or about planning your career, you are normally following an exploratory approach.

Normative methods start with a desirable future. Here you design exciting futures on the drawing board. Especially in normative scenarios we find creative, adventurous and revolutionary possibilities. Here the future is open.

If exploratory methods are usually quantitative, normative scenarios show as qualitative. You are not forecasting, but backcasting, you postulate the future and then see how you could get there. You are not restricted by what exists and the allegedly possible. You start with the vision, with the new world, and then find a way to adapt the existing fact.

Ideally, you combine the two approaches as you can see in the picture. With normative, creative approaches you produce an abundance of desirable future scenarios, reflecting the abundance of the universe. You look back by backcasting, what has to happen on the way to each of these scenarios to make them come true. Then start today with explorative forecasting methods. Evaluate the points at which changes, inventions, trends are likely and how that affects the way into the future. See where the paths into the future and from the future meet and what this means for future decisions and actions.