The Disruptive Futures Institute’s Proprietary Frameworks
One of the most recognized aspects of the Disruptive Futures Institute is its unique suite of frameworks, toolkits, and concepts.
These transdisciplinary methodologies form the foundation of our Executive Education Programs and are grounded in real-world examples. They help changemakers and organizations not just stay relevant - but thrive in an increasingly unpredictable world. Adopted by organizations worldwide, these methodologies have featured in leading publications such as the Journal of Futures Studies, MIT Technology Review, the Global Peter Drucker Forum, Fast Company, Risk.Net, the World Economic Forum, and more.
For too long, we spoke of tomorrow as something distant - yet tomorrow has arrived. The future is no longer an abstract horizon; it is unfolding now. What we once feared, what we once dreamed - it is here. We must now ask “What if this were to happen suddenly, right now?”
The Disruptive Futures Institute is helping to evolve the language and scope of the futures field, offering a comprehensive set of frameworks, methodologies, tools, language, and core concepts to help individuals and organizations shape resilient, transformative futures.
Through this work, we can shift mindsets, master the language of disruption and uncertainty, and build the capacity to navigate complexity, unpredictability, and change with confidence.
The Disruptive Futures Institute’s frameworks and tools were developed to address a widespread lack of resilience in today’s systems. Through our primary publications, the Disruptive Futures Institute has introduced a new lexicon and practical methodologies, crafted to shift mindsets and help redefine how we navigate uncertainty.
Now, we have consolidated and updated these ideas into a four-part article series, to provide an overview of our approach to systemic disruption.
In this four-part article series, we share an updated understanding of our work on systemic disruption in one convenient place - to enhance resilience and future-preparedness.
4-Part Article Series: Our Frameworks, Tools, and Language
Article 1: Executive Summary
Article 1 - Executive Summary
The Purpose and Impact of the Disruptive Futures Institute.
A high-level overview of its mission - and why its work matters now more than ever.
Article 2: Frameworks & Methodologies
Article 2 - Frameworks & Methodologies
An overview of the Disruptive Futures Institute’s proprietary FRAMEWORKS.
Designed to help you understand, anticipate, and navigate change.
Article 3: Tools & Toolkits
Article 3 - Toolkits
Practical, step-by-step TOOLS you can apply to your work and life.
While each toolkit stands alone, they support the broader frameworks.
Article 4: Language & Core Concepts
Article 4 - Language & Core Concepts
Defining the key terms and LANGUAGE that shape how we talk and act within this age of complexity.
Mastering updated language is essential for engaging with systemic disruption.
The Publications of the Disruptive Futures Institute
The Disruptive Futures Institute’s Publications Dive Deeper into these Frameworks
Given the overwhelming interest in our work, the responses to our many talks and programs, we decided to publish our unique frameworks and methodologies in two primary sets of publications:
First, the four-Volume Guidebook The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption
Second, Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World
Volume II of The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption is titled “Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty”. Throughout this comprehensive Guidebook, Roger Spitz with Lidia Zuin present and apply a host of enhanced foresight frameworks and toolkits. Chapter 5, “Anticipatory: The Capacity to Prepare for Constant Disruption”, and Chapter 11, “Futures Frameworks & Foresight Fundamentals Workbook”, contain a particularly dense frequency of practical tools and frameworks, used by professional futurists to help us imagine and create the futures we desire.
Drawing on transdisciplinary insights - from futures studies and systems thinking to sustainable development and foresight strategy - these books serve as a trusted compass for staying relevant and resilient amid systemic change.
The AAA Framework
The AAA Framework is a cornerstone for organizations thriving amid chaos. Designed to help individuals and organizations stay relevant in the 21st century, the AAA Framework offers the tools and mindset to build Antifragile foundations, develop the capabilities to be Anticipatory, and use emergent and strategic Agility to bridge the short-term with long-term decision-making.
In Disrupt With Impact and The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption, we also expand the AAA Framework into Being AAA+, which recognizes the importance of Agency and Alignment.
“One of Spitz’s most urgent messages is the need to become AAA: Anticipatory, Antifragile, and Agile. The AAA framework encourages governments, businesses, schools, and individuals to transform their traditional decision-making paradigms amid ongoing disruption.”
– Association of Professional Futurists, Compass Magazine
The Disruptive Thinking Canvas
Our Disruptive Thinking Canvas™ is a tool for inventing your futures, a personalized roadmap designed to help you thrive in today’s shifting environments. By identifying unexplored opportunities, you can invent the future, whether for yourself, your projects, or your organization. The Disruptive Thinking Canvas offers a step-by-step guide to navigate disruption and create impact, equipping you with the mindset and tools needed to succeed.
“Their Disruptive Thinking Canvas is an essential practice all organizations need to employ if they want to shape the future with impact and be around to see it.”
– Kara Cunzeman, Director of Strategic Foresight at the Aerospace Corporation, Chair of the Federal Foresight Advocacy Alliance
Four Drivers for Transformational Change
The Four Drivers for Transformational Change are four related mindsets and actions that can lead to systems-level transformative change:
Enhance strategic foresight with the AAA Framework: Anticipatory thinking and adaptive decision-making for resilient and sustainable futures.
Create virtuous inflection points: Understanding beneficial tipping points to offer pathways for desired changes.
Catalyze systems innovation instead of focusing on point solutions: Innovations must scale cost-effectively to become commercially viable and interact seamlessly in the real world.
Harness the levers for effective systemic change: Identify and harness effective levers to enable change across emerging complex systems.
“[Roger Spitz] challenges leaders to consider the broader impact of their actions on society and the environment, advocating for a systemic approach to innovation that advances sustainable value creation.”
– Chris Mayer, Director of Philosophy, United States Military Academy at West Point, Futures Empowered
Techistentialism
Techistentialism, a play on the terms technology and existential, studies the nature of human beings, existence, and decision-making in our technological world. Today, we face both technological and existential conditions that can no longer be separated. We define this phenomenon as Techistentialism.
Techistentialism broadens the definition of technology’s “existential risks” to include the curtailment of human agency. This brings the discussion back to a core meaning of “existential,” beyond physical threats, to consider the deep importance of meaningful human autonomy. Instead of treating AI primarily as a speculative future danger,
Techistentialism also focuses on immediate, human-centric vulnerabilities, advocating for the cultivation of human capabilities - Antifragile, Anticipatory, and Agility - as essential for relevance in the 21st century.
“Our loss of agency needs to be analyzed through a philosophical lens so that we can better understand ourselves in a world dominated by tech.”
– Noah Ackland, “Predicting the Unpredictable in Business with Roger Spitz”, Hult International Business School Blog
DECODE, Techistential’s Foresight Framework
Techistential’s Foresight Framework (DECODE) is designed to help explore signals of change (including weak signals at the fringe, scanning, and emerging issues), uncover patterns, calibrate the dimensions of uncertainty, probability, and risk, and think in different time horizons.
While the future is not knowable, DECODE can help us structure our vision of possible futures, imagine evolutions or pathways, and connect the shifting dots to develop more anticipatory mindsets.
The Six Steps of DECODE:
(i) Define: Understanding & Framing
(ii) Explore: Assessment & Scanning
(iii) Create: Creating Baseline & Alternative Futures
(iv) Option: Visioning
(v) Design: Planning & Designing
(vi) Enable: Agency & Adapting
Upon successful completion of our global education programs, the Disruptive Futures Institute confers proprietary certificates that demonstrate mastery of the material.
