“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” 

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States and Supreme Allied Commander

In haute couture, a garment is never merely close enough. Every part is measured against the body it must serve. It is still labelled a dress, albeit its precision is absolute to serve an aesthetic purpose that no ruler can capture. Fashion’s most enduring lesson for FP&A may be this: accuracy without purpose is mere measurement, while purpose without accuracy is mere aspiration. My past series introduced Strategic Foresight and its shared namespace. In two articles, I argue for FP&A to establish a dual-accuracy definition to provide a compass that aligns operational aspirations and strategic purpose.

Accuracy is a central concept in our craft. Applying it creates a tension every FP&A professional recognises: the demand to provide complementary accuracy and numerical precision while maintaining directional accuracy and navigational correctness in strategy. Once this duality is combined into one process, it becomes a strategic compass for everyday business. And while FP&A is not haute couture, both arts aim to create confidence to stand out tomorrow. For us, that confidence translates to more than a decimal-accurate forecast. It requires creativity and clarity to define probable and preferred futures and the courage to prepare accordingly.

Part 1 of the series introduces the duality of accuracy, and Part 2 focuses on roles and execution.

Two Faces of Accuracy: The Forecast and the Foresight

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” 

Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in Physics

FP&A has long been the guardian of one accuracy metric: forecast precision. Those who deviate too much or explain too late face an uncertain future. This may be the most relevant aspect of management engagement in forecasting. It also provides rigour to another domain: the required data makes it the analytical backbone for managerial decision-making beyond day-to-day decisions, giving FP&A credibility.

Yet precision in the near term can become a prison for the long term. An organisation that forecasts Q3 earnings to within 1% but fails to anticipate a structural market shift within three years has been accurately wrong. It was precise about the number — but inaccurate about the trajectory. This sites FP&A Maturity Model captures this distinction: as organisations mature, they move from reactive reporting to predictive and, ultimately, adaptive planning. Accuracy matures on this path from numerical to navigational.

Here lies a fundamental distinction, one I explored in depth in my Strategic Foresight series [6]. Forecast accuracy measures how closely a projection matches an eventual outcome within a known business logic. Foresight accuracy measures how well an organisation identifies and prepares for futures that may fall outside that logic entirely. The first is about getting the number right. The second is about asking the right question about the road ahead. Scenarios approach both accuracies from their respective angles. Forecast: what happens to our forecast if assumptions or actions change and Foresight: what happens to our assumptions and actions if the future direction changes.

The Futures Cone: A Compass for Navigational Accuracy

The Futures Cone remains the most important visual framework in Strategic Foresight. It classifies futures from the projected (forecasted) through the probable (likely given current trends), plausible (credible given current knowledge), possible (requiring knowledge we do not yet possess), to the preposterous (dismissed as impossible — until they happen). A separate layer, the preferred future, cuts across all categories and represents the aspirational direction an organisation chooses to pursue. Projected and preferred futures may significantly deviate from the probable.

For FP&A, this taxonomy is transformative. Traditional financial scenarios, from “best” to “worst,” were of little organisational use when their assumptions differed across the organisation and typically occupied only a narrow futures area within the existing business model. Foresight solves both by asking: what if the model itself changes? This expands the perspective and provides a set of assumptions valid across the organisation. Scenarios serve as an intermediate step towards dual accuracy, flexing the business model.

To make this distinction practical, the table below summarises the key differences between forecast accuracy and foresight accuracy across several dimensions.

The Duality: Forecast Accuracy vs. Foresight Accuracy

Figure 1: Dual Accuracy Framework for FP&A

In my Foresight series, I described scenarios as stories of how the future may unfold, supported by three complementary activities: perceiving (scanning for weak signals), prospecting (developing future narratives), and probing (testing hypotheses). These activities do not replace the forecasting cycle, as they are already applied to varying degrees. Reframing them from the future adds depth and scope. They provide the assumptions that make driver-based models meaningful and expose the blind spots that variance analysis alone cannot reveal.

The Case for Clean Lines for an Unclear Future

“In every block of marble I saw a statue as plain as though it stood before me. I had only to hew away the rough walls that imprisoned the lovely apparition to reveal it.” 

Michelangelo, Renaissance artist, sculptor, and architect

The comics of Tintin are told with uniform line weights, sharp contours, and no hatching or shadows to their readers. The result is a world of stunning clarity amid immense visual complexity. Every element is defined; nothing is ambiguous. FP&A needs a similar style. In a world drowning in data, dashboards, and disruption, the discipline must draw clean, unambiguous lines between what it knows (the forecast), what it explores (the actions), and what it imagines (the scenarios). These three layers must be distinct yet connected — like the clear lines of a couture pattern that, once assembled, produce a garment of extraordinary sophistication.

One clear line to draw is the role of accuracy at different time horizons. This seems a rather simple stroke, but it is not. Many companies draw a line one year out and require less accounting detail in the hope of focusing more on assumptions and drivers. Yet the detail of unfolding futures is hardly addressed, while the current one is given less detail. Scanning for weak signals is a method that focuses solely on small details today, which can develop into relevant ones tomorrow. Foresight requires a new skill that goes beyond analytical mastery and accuracy. The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies calls it joint intelligence: the ability to combine diverse perspectives into a shared understanding of what might lie ahead.[3] The good news is that the forecast process provides a necessary foundation. Use scenarios and the time horizon to introduce joint intelligence to the organisation and the conversation will naturally shift from point to navigational accuracy.

Intermediate Thought: Position and Direction

“There is no favorable wind for the sailor who doesn’t know where to go.” 

Seneca, Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome

The first part argues for clarity in position and direction. Forecasting and Foresight support both, one retrospectively and the other prospectively. An organisation is well advised to discuss numbers that match expectations and their effects on unfolding futures. The Forecasting process is well-suited for this, and the introduction of Foresight will increase clarity and purpose. But understanding dual accuracy is only the first step. The real challenge and opportunity lie in how FP&A teams embed it into planning, decision-making, and business partnering in practice. This is where we turn next.

References and Further Reading

1. Voros, J. (2003). A generic foresight process framework. Foresight, 5(3), 10–21.

2. Hancock, T. & Bezold, C. (1994). Possible futures, preferable futures. The Healthcare Forum Journal, 37(2), 23–29.

3. Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. Strategic Foresight principles and methodology.

4. Association for Financial Professionals (AFP). Certified Corporate FP&A Professional (FPAC) Body of Knowledge.

5. FP&A Trends Group. FP&A Maturity Model.

6. Wienefoet, T. (2025). Strategic Foresight: How CFOs Turn Uncertainty into Advantage — Parts 1–3. FP&A Trends.

7. Wienefoet, T. (2018). The Prerequisites for FP&A Prediction Machines and Beyond. FP&A Trends.