"A risk assessment of the Piql Services" by FFI

events, we can plan for something happening, and in that way help minimise the negative consequences if they do [37].

The scenario-based approach is a method used to help us model and manage this uncertainty. It is one of the most used foresight techniques in Norway, implying that its usage is very well- founded, which is the case at FFI. The scenario-based approach lets uncertainty serve as a guide when structuring possible future events, as opposed to other methods, such as prognosis- making, which instead only tries to minimise it. In this sense, we are liberated from only examining the developmental trends we can observe today. Instead, we are prompted to consider questions such as: How likely or unlikely is it that X event will occur in Z years? And even if it seems unlikely, should it occur, how significant will the event be for the object we are analysing? [38 p.162-179] Using this line of thought allows us to attempt to capture the outliers and account for such events which have a low likelihood but significant consequences. We are thus allowed to cast a wider net than would have been possible if we only used observable developmental trends and projections of actual progress as our sources of information in futures studies. At the same time, the criterias for scenario development is that the scenarios are plausible, relevant and internally consistent. Plausibility infers that the scenarios must be grounded in reality and tangible facts, insofar as they must be able to take place in the real world. Relevancy implies that the scenarios are related to the subject of analysis. Developing a scenario is not in itself sufficient. It is only relevant insofar that it can be used as a tool put towards a bigger purpose, e.g. as a method for an analysis. Lastly, internal consistency refers to how the scenario cannot be developed based on premises which cannot exist together, i.e. which are mutually exclusive [38 p.162-179, 39 p.7-8]. We will return to the criterias for scenario development and elaborate on them further in chapter 6.3. There exists a subtle, yet important distinction between the terms scenario development, scenario description and scenario analysis, as briefly touched upon in chapter 4. For the purposes of this report scenario development is understood as the process of mapping all the factors which need to be included in a given analysis for it to be able to give meaningful conclusions. A step in the scenario development is selecting the relevant scenarios for the further analysis. In this project, we use a method called morphological analysis, the procedure of which – and the resulting scenario selection – will be described in detail in chapter 6.3. Scenario description is understood as the act of writing out a scenario, selected and defined during the scenario development phase. Lastly, scenario analysis is understood as the processes of utilising the completed scenario descriptions to analyse results, make conclusions and give recommendations suitable to the assignment. The scenario-based approach allows us to analyse and include a great number of possible future events. This aspect is vital in this project because there are a lot of issues and elements which need to be covered by this analysis in order to make it complete. These will be elaborated upon in the following.

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FFI-RAPPORT 16/00707