Lessons for Uncertainty: Navigating the Unknown

Lessons for Uncertainty – Six Practices

A playful workshop for navigating the unknown

What do you do when you don't know what comes next? Stick with what's familiar, wait for more information, or try something new?

Join us for a lively, hands-on hour exploring six practices for engaging with uncertainty. Through playful improvisation, creative experiments and unexpected exchanges, you'll have opportunities to notice how you respond when plans change, information is incomplete and new possibilities emerge.

You might discover capabilities you already use, recognise familiar habits or find something new to experiment with. Think of it as a warm-up for uncertainty: a chance to exercise skills you can keep developing, on your own and with others.

Expect curiosity, laughter, a little surprise and space to reflect. No prior experience needed — just a willingness to play.

The future is uncertain. How we engage with it is something we can practise.

About the Workshop

This Ōtautahi Futures gathering provides an opportunity to meet others from the futures community and beyond, all with a curiosity and openness to exploring the unknown. The workshop builds on Helen's hugely popular workshop presented at this year's Aotearoa Futures Forum.

Come along early ready for a 5:30pm start.

This session will be facilitated by Helen Palmer

Helen helps people learn so something different becomes possible. She runs her own practice, designing and facilitating experiences that help people develop capabilities, explore new possibilities and navigate organisational changing. Drawing on a varied toolkit of facilitation, coaching, teaching, writing and product design, she brings complex ideas to life with a dash of originality, a dose of pragmatism and a sprinkling of kindness.

Recently returned to Aotearoa New Zealand after nearly three decades overseas, Helen is enjoying putting down new roots. Outside work, she cares for a handsome greyhound, explores her family history (including a whakapapa stretching back 21 generations), dabbles in origami, loses herself in the imagined cultures of science fiction and occasionally composes a poem or three, following in the footsteps of three generations of ancestors.