• Financial risk: To build a persistent forecasting system, adequate and persistent funding is required. A diverse source of funding would reduce the risk of failure due to inadequate financial support.

• Stakeholder risk: The final risk is that the forecasts produced by the system are not used or are rejected inappropriately by stakeholders and decision makers. There may be several factors that can cause this:

  • An unactionable forecast: A forecast that does not provide adequate insight into potential futures results in the inability to make decisions from it. A forecast that is overly general or fails to assess potential impact results in an unactionable forecast.

  • An unbelievable forecast: It is difficult for stakeholders to accept a forecast that might be considered unbelievable or improbable because it may challenge current beliefs. It is important that the greater the improbability, the greater the amount of effort given to explain how an alternative future can occur from a current point in time. Roadmapping and narratives are important tools that can be deployed to mitigate this risk.

  • Inappropriate use of a forecast: Forecasters need to guard against the use of selective portions of a forecast to support a conclusion different from what the forecast intended. The forecast team should, whenever possible, review how stakeholders and decision makers are using the forecast and its conclusions.

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