Tricia Friedman

Forecasting Framework: Bark to the Future

✨ Forecasting framework • guided reflection

🐶 Bark to the Future

When we think about the future, we often mistake our cultural conditioning for inevitable reality. This framework forces you to work backward from your gut-level predictions down to your deepest biases, before pivoting to generate a genuinely new perspective.

Open printable version
Start here
Pick a topic or trend
Process
Work from prediction to hidden story
Reminder
PAWS… oops, Pause between each step
🐕
🐕 1BARK

The Default Prediction

What is your immediate, unexamined assumption about the future of this topic?
▾
The Goal

Get your gut instinct out of your head and onto the page.

Rule

Do not justify, defend, or nuance it yet. State the “obvious” outcome as bluntly as possible.

Sentence Stems
“My default assumption is that…”
“I find myself believing it is inevitable that…”

Pause + write offline

Reflection timer
1:00
Write this down somewhere else
Set a one-minute timer on your phone, jot down your response somewhere else, then open the next layer.
🦴
🦴 2LEASH

Structural Assumptions

What current systems, incentives, or material conditions are you assuming will dictate this future?
▾
The Goal

Identify the physical, economic, or systemic rules you are treating as permanent.

Rule

Pinpoint the exact incentive structure your prediction relies upon.

Sentence Stems
“My prediction assumes that [System/Industry] will continue to reward…”
“I am taking it for granted that the rules around [X] will remain…”

Pause + write offline

Reflection timer
1:00
Write this down somewhere else
Set a one-minute timer on your phone, jot down your response somewhere else, then open the next layer.
🧠
🧠 3TRAINING

Hidden Worldview

What must you fundamentally believe about human nature, progress, or success for your prediction to be the ONLY logical outcome?
▾
The Goal

Catch the subjective beliefs you are smuggling into your forecast as neutral facts.

Rule

Admit where your personal values, fears, or professional biases are doing the driving.

Sentence Stems
“My forecast only makes sense if I believe that people naturally…”
“The definition of ‘progress’ or ‘success’ I am secretly relying on here is…”

Pause + write offline

Reflection timer
1:00
Write this down somewhere else
Set a one-minute timer on your phone, jot down your response somewhere else, then open the next layer.
🫚
🫚 4STORY

The echoes of a narrative you are hearing

What underlying archetype, movie plot, or metaphor is secretly organizing your thinking?
▾
The Goal

Realize that your “objective” prediction is influenced by a familiar cultural script.

Rule

Summarize your prediction as if it were a genre of fiction (dystopia, fairy tale, a David vs. Goliath story).

Sentence Stems
“The deep metaphor shaping my view is [the student as an empty vessel, learning as a race]…”
“The story I am telling myself casts [Topic/People] in the role of…”

Pause + write offline

Reflection timer
1:00
Write this down somewhere else
Set a one-minute timer on your phone, jot down your response somewhere else, then open the next layer.
🐾
🐾 5UNLEASH

Let your imagination run free

If you completely discard your default metaphor and adopt a radically different one, what new, plausible future suddenly becomes visible?
▾
The Goal

Deliberately adopt a contradicting worldview to force your brain to generate an alternative future.

Rule

You don’t have to prefer this new future, but you must make it logically sound based on the new metaphor.

Sentence Stems
“If the organizing metaphor wasn’t [Old Metaphor] but was instead [New Metaphor], a highly likely outcome would actually be…”
“Looking through this new lens, an assumption hidden in my original thinking was…”

Pause + write offline

Reflection timer
1:00
Write this down somewhere else
Set a one-minute timer on your phone, jot down your response somewhere else, then open the next layer.
This resource is inspired by Sohail Inayatullah’s Causal Layered Analysis, and by Tashi, my furever companion.