CIB - Where are we and where are we going?

Cross-Impact Balances (CIB) was proposed in 2006 as a method for qualitative systems and scenario analysis. Fifteen years and about 300 published application cases later, the time has come to discuss the state of the art and future avenues of the method with method theorists and practitioners from all application domains. Looking back can help to understand which direction we should take in the further development of the method. Hence, a preparatory step of reflecting on CIB’s future can be to comprehensively review the past and current method practice and investigate, what benefits CIB users appreciate, what challenges they see, and what method limitations they experience. Questions addressed in the presentation include: What is specific about CIB when we compare the method with similar methods? In what fields of application is CIB used - methodologically and thematically? With which methods is CIB typically combined with and for what purpose? What analytical capabilities of CIB are widely used, and what are rarely applied? What opportunities to improve analysis quality are sometimes overlooked? What do we know or can we surmise, despite publication bias, why CIB analyses fail (if they fail)? Is this because the potential of the method as it is today is not fully exploited, or is it because the method still needs further development? And last but not least: how does the CIB community exchange and communicate about these experiences and should and can this be further improved?