Backcasting
Influencing current reality from desired future state scenario / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Backcasting is a planning method that starts with defining a desirable future and then works backwards to identify policies and programs that will connect that specified future to the present.[1] The fundamentals of the method were outlined by John B. Robinson from the University of Waterloo in 1990.[2] The fundamental question of backcasting asks: "if we want to attain a certain goal, what actions must be taken to get there?"[3][4]
While forecasting involves predicting the future based on current trend analysis, backcasting approaches the challenge of discussing the future from the opposite direction; it is "a method in which the future desired conditions are envisioned and steps are then defined to attain those conditions, rather than taking steps that are merely a continuation of present methods extrapolated into the future".[5]
In statistics and data analysis, backcasting can be considered to be the opposite of forecasting; thus:
- forecasting involves the prediction of the future (unknown) values of the dependent variables based on known values of the independent variable.
- backcasting involves the prediction of the unknown values of the independent variables that might have existed, in order to explain the known values of the dependent variable.[6]