Knowledge Center - Quality Hot Topics

2008 Futures Study

The Future of Quality -- and the World
The world is changing. Technology has minimized or eliminated boundaries that used to define the limits of business and communication. The population is getting older: Most of us will be 60 or more by 2025. There's a new spirit of social responsibiliy in the air, but at the same time we see threats ahead from environmental damage and continued increases in resource consumption.

And quality is changing too. Those who want to lead the way in the world of quality are going to need new sets of knowledge and skills, and greater flexibility than ever before.

Are you scared? Or are you excited and hopeful?

ASQ invites you to download and read our Futures Study (PDF, 1 MB) -- the latest in a series of "futuring" exercises we've spearheaded since 1995 -- and to take part in dialogues around the forces and issues shaping the future, and the roles quality -- and you -- can play.

Download the Study

A summary of the 2008 ASQ Futures Study is available as a PDF (1 MB). This full-color brochure details the process ASQ undertook to identify the key forces shaping the future of quality and the world, explains our findings, and relates four different scenarios for how the future might play out. Open Access.

Join the Conversation

ASQ has already convened dozens of "stakeholder dialogues" about the Futures Study with business and community groups. We'd like to help you get in on the discussion. E-mail us for details.

Quality Progress breaks down the Futures Study

ASQ's flagship magazine offers concise coverage of the study and how it was derived, and background on the Futures Studies overseen by ASQ during the past 13 years. Open Access.

Coming Soon: More information on the Futures Study

Keep checking back for updates, including suggested readings from ASQ's archives on the major forces identified by the 2008 Futures Study, and new opportunities to join the dialogues developing around these critical ideas.