Before you play, read your worlds. The Gauntlet drops your group into one of these two organisations and walks you through six foresight tools to build a strategy that survives to 2040. Read both — you'll only play one, but the thinking transfers.
A full read of one case takes 6–8 minutes · both, about 12–15
YOUR MANDATE
Méridien Banque
You are the newly-appointed Strategy & Foresight unit, reporting to the Board.
Méridien is a mid-size European retail bank — 4.2 million customers, 380 branches, a respected 90-year-old name. It is profitable today. The Board's instruction is blunt: “Tell us what Méridien must become so that it still exists, and still matters, in 2040.” Not next quarter. 2040.
The bank feels stable from the inside, and that is exactly the danger. Every number that matters is moving — slowly enough to ignore in any single board meeting, fast enough to be decisive over fifteen years. Your job is to see the movement while there is still time to act on it.
THE SHIFTING GROUND
62%
of customers now bank primarily through the app
−9%
branch visits per year, and accelerating
11%
of under-30 current accounts already held by a single fintech
+18%
rise in fraud as channels go digital
THE BRANCH / APP CROSSOVER
Where customer attention actually lives, and where it's heading.
Three things are happening at once, and they don't move together. Technology is racing — three neobanks have launched generative-AI financial advisors that answer in seconds what used to need an appointment. Behaviour is drifting — the young are leaving quietly, one account at a time. And the rules are shifting underneath everyone: the EU AI Act is now in force, and a digital-euro pilot is live, which could one day let citizens hold central-bank money directly and route deposits away from banks entirely.
⚠
The trap the Board has already half-fallen into: assuming the future is just “more app, fewer branches.” That's a straight-line guess. The real uncertainties — how far AI advice goes, whether the digital euro takes off, whether customers trust a machine with their money — could break in ways that make that tidy story wrong.
SIGNAL vs NOISE — YOUR FIRST TEST
In Level 1 you'll scan this world and separate the genuine scenario drivers (things that are both high-impact and genuinely uncertain) from the decoys (facts that are true today, or certain, and so can't fork the future). Here's a taste of the call you'll have to make:
genuine driver decoy — true but not a fork
✓
How far AI advice autonomy goes
Could replace advisors entirely — or stall on trust and regulation. High impact, wide open.
✓
Digital-euro adoption
Could reroute where money lives. Genuinely uncertain — depends on policy and public uptake.
✓
Customer trust in being served by machines
The quiet swing factor — the same tech lands very differently depending on this.
×
“Smartphones will still exist”
True — but certain. A certainty is a planning assumption, not a scenario axis.
×
“Margins are squeezed today”
Describes the present, not a future uncertainty. Real, but it doesn't branch.
🎯
Your goal across six levels: scan the forces, catch the weak signals, find the deep worldview driving the drift, choose two independent axes, build four believable worlds for 2040, and land on the moves Méridien must start now to survive all of them. Points for rigour — and for not falling into the obvious traps.
YOUR MANDATE
Costa Verde Water Authority
You are the Strategic Foresight task force, reporting to the metro Water Authority board.
Costa Verde is a sun-soaked Mediterranean city of 1.8 million people, growing 2% a year. Tourism is booming, the economy is strong — and the water is running out more quietly than anyone wants to admit. Your mandate: “Show us how Costa Verde secures its water to 2040, whatever the climate and the politics throw at us.”
Water is the one system a city cannot improvise its way out of. Reservoirs take a decade to build; public trust takes longer; a single dry summer can turn a manageable problem into a political emergency overnight. You are being asked to think in decades while everyone around you thinks in seasons.
THE NUMBERS THAT KEEP THE BOARD AWAKE
70%
of supply comes from one reservoir
30-yr
low hit by that reservoir last summer
−15%
rainfall over the past 20 years
22%
of treated water lost to leaks before it reaches a tap
WHERE THE WATER GOES
Today's demand — before a proposed data-centre cluster adds more.
The supply side is just as exposed. Desalination covers only 12% of need today and is expensive and energy-hungry. Heatwaves have doubled in frequency since 2010. A proposed data-centre cluster would bring jobs and investment — and a thirsty new industrial customer. And the city shares a river with a neighbouring region, where a simmering water dispute could flare at any time. Meanwhile smart meters sit at just 30% coverage, so for most of the city, no one even sees what they use.
THE RESERVOIR, SUMMER BY SUMMER
The single source 70% of the city depends on.
⚠
The trap the board keeps reaching for: “just build another desal plant.” More supply feels decisive — but if demand keeps behaving as though water is free and infinite, the new supply gets swallowed and the shortage returns. The deep problem may not be supply at all.
SIGNAL vs NOISE — YOUR FIRST TEST
As with any foresight scan, your first job is to tell the real drivers apart from the decoys — the facts that are true today but can't, on their own, fork the future:
genuine driver decoy — true but not a fork
✓
Severity & timing of climate-driven drought
Enormous impact, genuinely uncertain pace. The master uncertainty.
✓
Public acceptance of tariffs & restrictions
The political swing factor — the same plan succeeds or fails on this.
✓
Cost trajectory of desalination & reuse
Decides whether new supply can actually scale — far from settled.
×
“The reservoir supplies 70% today”
A present fact, not a future fork. Important context — but it doesn't branch.
×
“Water is essential for life”
A truism. No strategic uncertainty lives here.
🎯
Your goal across six levels: scan the forces, spot the weak signals at the edges, drill past the symptoms to the worldview underneath, pick two independent axes, build four plausible 2040s, and commit to the no-regret moves Costa Verde must begin now. The future rewards lead time, not panic.
GROUP PLAY
Join the Gauntlet
Enter the session code on the big screen, then claim your group.
SESSION CODE
CLAIM YOUR GROUP
TEAM NAME (optional)
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LEVEL 1 OF 6
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