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ScenarioWizard 4.1 5

1 Preface

The ScenarioWizard is designed for applying cross-impact balance analysis (CIB), a method of qualita-

tive system and scenario analysis. CIB facilitates the construction of qualitative scenarios based on

“qualitative impact networks”, i.e. based on qualitative knowledge concerning the mutual impact

relations of a system’s principal elements. Qualitative impact networks are used as a concept of sys-

tem description in many disciplines, for instance in economics, energy policy analysis, technology

foresight, innovation research, social sciences, management sciences and health care analysis. CIB

offers an approach to analyse qualitative impact networks and to understand their behaviour.

CIB and ScenarioWizard were first developed from 2001 to 2003 at the Center for Technology As-

sessment and developed further from 2004 to 2011 at ZIRN, the Interdisciplinary Research Unit on

Risk Governance and Sustainable Technology Development. In 2012, when ZIRN was integrated in

ZIRIUS, the newly founded Research Center for Risk and Innovation Studies of the University of Stutt-

gart, the curatorship of the CIB method was transferred to this organization. Since 2001 the method

and the software have been used, tested, and improved in many projects.

This manual only describes the technical aspects of using ScenarioWizard. It does not aim to explain

the methodological basis of CIB, give details on the different methods of evaluation, or the theoreti-

cal background to this form of analysis. A short introduction to the basic concepts of CIB is offered in

chapter 2, however. The CIB homepage

www.cross-impact.de provides further information, refer-

ences and materials.

The transition from version 3.5 to version 4 consists of several new functions, among of them a new

file format integrating all project information into a single file, the management of textual descrip-

tions of the descriptors and their cross-impacts, and - possibly the heart of the new version - an

automatic generator of scenario reports discussing the logical coherence of the scenarios. On the

other hand, some functions which are less frequently needed in practice stepped back from the fore-

front of the user interface.

A further change is the merger of the free basic version of the software ScenarioWizard with its full

version. Since version 4.0, the freely available version contains the full functionality of the software

without previous user registration in order to make a broad application of the CIB method in qualita-

tive system and scenario analysis more easy and uncomplicated.

The structure of this manual is as follows: chapter 2 contains a short introduction to the CIB method.

Far from being exhaustive it gives a rough idea of the goals, the approach and the possible products

of a CIB analysis. Yet the installation of the software is straightforward and uses standard Windows

install procedures, it is shortly described in chapter 3. Chapter 4 takes you through a simple CIB

analysis procedure creating scenarios of the societal future of the fictitious country “Somewhere-

land”. After having worked through this chapter you will be able to map the analysis steps described

in chapter 2 onto the corresponding ScenarioWizard functions.

After this overview, the subsequent chapters describe the functions of the software in greater detail.

Chapter 5 shows how to build up a project file (containing descriptors, descriptor variants, descriptor

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SCW The Econ D1 Manual de usuario Pagina 8