Abduction and Scenarios

Most people are familiar with induction and deduction, but not too many know about abduction. I found many different explanations of what it is by searching on abduction and abductive reasoning. They range from very complicated to less complicated. Quoted here is one that I found that is simply stated and what I think relevant to the development of scenarios

"Concerning the validity of Abductive inference, there is little to be said, although that little is pertinent to the problem we have in hand. Abduction is the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis. It is the only logical operation which introduces any new idea; for induction does nothing but determine a value, and deduction merely evolves the necessary consequences of a pure hypothesis. Deduction proves that something must be; Induction shows that something actually is operative; Abduction merely suggests that something may be. Its only justification is that from its suggestion deduction can draw a prediction which can be tested by induction, and that, if we are ever to learn anything or to understand phenomena at all, it must be by abduction that this is to be brought about. No reason whatsoever can be given for it, as far as I can discover; and it needs no reason, since it merely offers suggestions." (Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism, CP 5.171-172, 1903)

There are many definitions on this page, but this is the one that I like the best. Scenarios help us to discover what could be. Therefore, a futurist should become an expert in abduction and its application.