Permalink of this method: https://www.universalforesight.com/uf-methods-bank/11289
| Nature of the method: | Quantitative Methods |
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Trends provide a rough idea of how past and present developments may look like in the future – assuming, to some extent, that the future is a kind of continuation of the past. There may be large changes, but these are extensions of patterns that have been previously observed. Essentially, it is assumed that certain underlying processes – which may or may not be explicated – will continue to operate, driving the trend forwards.
In practice, of course, most, if not all, trends will confront limits and countertrends at some point in their evolution. Sophisticated trend analysis attempts to deal with such issues by fitting specific curves to particular phenomena (e.g. S-shaped logistic curves are often used to represent variables like population growth or the diffusion of a technology; envelope curves are used to depict trends in functionality that persist over several generations of different technologies, etc.). Recently, the concept of Megatrends has become popular to refer to macro level phenomena which include various (sometimes conflicting) sub-phenomena (e.g. globalisation, ageing, climate change).