The Value of Mass-Produced Covid-19 Scenarios: An Evaluation of the Quality of Development Processes and Scenario Content

Hundreds of scenarios were developed across the world in the first six months of 2020, aimed at generating forward-looking conversations, better understanding COVID-19 transmission rates, trialling economic outcomes, and stress-testing existing systems in light of the developing pandemic. In response, Cairns & Wright (2020) offer three propositions that question the value of scenarios created retroactively to existing crises. We use a distilled version of the CSI typology (Crawford, 2019) as a guiding map against which we plot each scenario’s profile and test the three propositions. Our analyses largely support Cairns & Wright’s initial propositions that early COVID-19 scenarios i) are frozen pictures in time, ii) take a global perspective, and iii) are delivered to a general audience, resulting in lost value for their intended audiences and affected communities. Together, our papers develop and reinforce the message that scenario audiences should make an evaluation of all presented scenario sets using the yardsticks of (i) quality process and (ii) quality content - in order to appreciate the value of practitioner offerings.