War Rooms and Wind Tunnels

In their book, War Rooms and Wind Tunnels, authors Jakob Lignell (DLG) and Thomas Holm (Implement) argue that while AI can generate forecasts, only human judgement decides what matters. From there, they show how embedding scenario planning into everyday organisational rhythms builds collective muscle memory for navigating uncertainty – not predicting the future but practising how to meet it.

Leadership begins where certainty ends

Leaders are expected to set direction and act, even when the assumptions behind their plans may already be changing. AI can generate forecasts, scenarios, and plausible recommendations in seconds. But it cannot decide what matters most or when the assumptions behind a plan no longer hold. Those are questions of judgement. Yet good judgement is not simply a quality possessed by a few experienced leaders. It depends on the processes, conversations, and organisational habits through which decisions are prepared, challenged, made, and revisited.

Moving scenario planning beyond the occasional strategy workshop

In the book, Jakob Lignell and Thomas Holm show how scenario planning helps organisations build those human capabilities, offering specific tools along the way.

Drawing on history, psychology, practical experience, and real organisational cases, they explore how leaders can make critical assumptions visible, imagine more than one plausible future, and stress-test their options before committing to decisions that may be difficult to reverse.

War Rooms and Wind Tunnels moves scenario planning beyond the occasional strategy workshop and into the recurring rhythms of organisational life, where teams repeatedly challenge assumptions, explore alternatives, and monitor the signals that could change a decision. Scenario planning becomes the practical discipline for connecting prediction with human judgement across strategic, tactical, and executional decisions.

Over time, this repeated practice builds cognitive muscle memory: the collective ability to recognise change, question established thinking, and act coherently when the unexpected happens. The objective is not to have rehearsed the precise crisis that eventually arrives. It is to have rehearsed how to think together under pressure.

Overall, the book argues that the future cannot be predicted. But organisations can practise how they will meet it.