Building the future rather than simply forecasting it: SDA Bocconi’s method for sectors in transition

More than the conclusions reached, it is the methodological innovation that represents the defining element of the project carried out by SDA Bocconi School of Management together with Confagricoltura on 7-9 May, when twenty faculty members guided around one hundred regional and provincial representatives of the association in defining Confagricoltura’s Strategic Plan and the related Manifesto for Italian agriculture in 2050.

The initiative was not simply a scenario-planning exercise, but rather the testing of an interdisciplinary working model designed to be replicated across other sectors and organizational contexts.

Moreover, although the initiative unfolded over an intensive three-day period, the preparatory work engaged the Invernizzi AGRI Lab and the other faculty members for several months.

How to support insiders

Traditionally, scenario-building exercises are entrusted to specialists deeply immersed in the sector under analysis. This approach guarantees vertical expertise, but it also risks producing self-referential visions: those who know a field extremely well tend to interpret its future through already established categories.

The method developed by SDA Bocconi’s Invernizzi AGRI Lab overturns this logic. Instead of concentrating the work exclusively on agriculture experts, the project involved twenty faculty members and researchers from different disciplinary areas, tasked with examining the sector through complementary perspectives: innovation, finance, organization, strategy, infrastructure, sustainability, technology, human capital, governance, and communication.

The underlying idea is that the future of a sector cannot be built by observing only the sector itself, but by understanding the interdependencies connecting it to other economic, technological, and social systems. In this sense, multidisciplinarity is the necessary condition for producing truly transformative scenarios.

The co-creation process

The most innovative aspect concerns the organizational capabilities required to orchestrate the process. SDA Bocconi developed a common framework that allowed nine different working groups to operate simultaneously while following the same methodology.

For months, the AGRI Lab team collected data, prepared briefings, analyzed hundreds of sources, and developed operational guidelines for the participating faculty members. Each table was coordinated by a SDA Bocconi senior faculty member and a researcher, yet all operated within a shared methodological design.

The result was a collective exercise involving more than one hundred participants, including representatives, executives, and local presidents of Confagricoltura. Yet the quantitative dimension is almost secondary compared to the quality of the dynamic: transforming such a large group into a system capable of producing coherent strategic content in just two days required an extremely solid methodological structure.

This is where one of the project’s most interesting aspects emerges: the combination of facilitation, research, and “live” strategic production in the creation of a guided co-creation process in which theory and practical knowledge mutually reinforce one another.

From forecasting to shaping the future

Conceptually as well, the method departs from more traditional foresight approaches. The objective was not to predict the future of agriculture, but to shape it.

The distinction is substantial. Forecasting processes tend to ask what might happen. The framework adopted by SDA Bocconi instead starts from a different question: what conditions must be created today to make the desired future possible?

The work developed across three progressive levels:

• defining a shared future vision;
• identifying the preconditions necessary to achieve it;
• identifying the organizational and institutional transformations required to create those preconditions.

This approach shifts the focus from merely describing scenarios to activating the concrete levers of change. For example, if one believes that the future of agriculture lies in robotics and artificial intelligence, the challenge is not only to imagine automated farms, but also to understand which managerial capabilities, infrastructures, regulations, and organizational models are needed to make them possible.

The managerial challenge

One of the elements emerging across all working groups concerned the issue of competencies. Although starting from very different areas, the groups agreed that it is no longer possible to think of agricultural businesses without considering the managerial logics characterizing other economic sectors.

Technological innovation, sustainability, access to finance, data management, relationships with public administration, and the ability to interpret consumer behavior all require increasingly sophisticated managerial capabilities.

Here again, the multidisciplinary method proved decisive: the interaction among different perspectives made it possible to uncover connections that would have remained less visible within a purely sector-based discussion.

A framework transferable to other sectors

The project led to the definition of a transferable operational model.

Many sectors are currently facing systemic transformations similar to those affecting agriculture: technological transition, sustainability, the redefinition of skills, the evolution of institutional relationships, and changing social expectations. In this context, complex organizations such as trade associations, industrial supply chains, public institutions, and large corporations themselves need to analyze change and build shared visions that can quickly be translated into strategic priorities.

The framework tested by SDA Bocconi shows how this can be achieved through several key conditions:

• genuine integration among different disciplines;
• a strong shared methodological structure;
• cross-functional coordination capabilities;
• active stakeholder engagement;
• the simultaneous production of strategic content and organizational consensus.

The project’s most innovative element lies in having built a methodological machine capable of transforming complexity and a plurality of viewpoints into concrete and shared strategic directions.