Future Studies (also known as Strategic Foresight or Scenario Planning) are the first step investors take before embarking on investment projects. They are similar to a long-range weather forecast. They are based on comprehensive 'horizon scanning' which is a risk discovery methodology which investigates segments of the future such as Social, Approach, Technological, Economic, Resources, Political, Legal, International, Demographic, Environmental. The method searches for risk factors in several fields, such as stock market reports, global and local military plans, host government infrastructure plans, local competitor plans and standard academic literature search. The aim of the process is comprehensive, rapid due diligence whereby the busy investment executives can justify the choices they have made in order to arrive at a "Go/No-go" decision of a particular investment opportunity. If "Go", the project is taken to the strategy development phase. The opportunity may be within the organization's existing operations or quite external. The output of the process is an online, interactive risk assessment report to which the client can apply variations in an agreed range of assumptions. The process has proven capable of evaluating more than 10 substantial projects within a 1-day team evaluation session.