Impact Trust • Working glossary

Preparedness space

A framework mapping two dimensions: certainty of anticipation against preparedness - so revealing four quadrants from ‘well-prepared for known risks’ to ‘unprepared for unknown surprises’.

Details

Our Take
Simple and powerful for workshop use. The painful quadrant - 'good foresight but poor preparedness' - resonates strongly because it names the lived experience: seeing what is coming but unable to move institutions fast enough to prepare. Makes the gap between knowing and doing visible.
Examples of Use
Beth Sawin / Multisolving Institute
Synonyms/Variants
Foresight-preparedness matrix; Anticipation quadrants
Typical everyday wording
A map of whether we can see what is coming and whether we are ready