Like the deadly smoke from the recent fire at the abandoned Deutsche Bank building near Ground Zero, Sept. 11, 2001, still reminds us of the consequences of the unexpected. And while clairvoyance was not considered a mandatory tool of top management six years ago, today we are in the midst of a serious corporate attempt to create the next best thing—scenario and contingency planning—to better prepare for the unanticipated.

Indeed, 69% of global executives whom we recently surveyed noted increasing use and satisfaction with this strategic tool for penetrating uncertainties and for thinking through in advance what to do when Plan A fails—sometimes catastrophically.

Scenario and contingency planning was only of middling interest to most executives when we ran our first survey of management tools back in 1993. That's when we began tracking usage and performance of the 25 most popular management tools, selected by weighting and rating their appearance in management reviews and business articles in the survey year.

Ominously, 1993 was the same year that terrorists first attempted to destroy New York's World Trade Center with a bomb in its garage. Back then, only 38% of firms reported using standardized techniques for spinning out what-if scenarios around potential crises and disasters, as well as to create simulation models for business growth. At the same time, satisfaction with the tools performance ranked only 15th out of 25 tools, suggesting that even those who were using it weren't finding it particularly useful.

Among firms that did embrace a scenario and contingency mindset for catastrophe at the time was the New York Board of Trade, which built a second trading floor outside the Trade Center. Eight years later, that foresight kept the organization in business after the terrorists' attack. The NYBOT has since created a third floor.

Throughout the rest of the 1990s, our surveys showed scenario and contingency planning usage tracking at approximately the same percentage rate. But it leaped above the mean for all surveyed tools' use in 2002 to 70%—along with such favored tools as customer segmentation, outsourcing and benchmarking—and has remained above 50% ever since, with satisfaction climbing steadily.

The adoption has been global: It hit 72% in usage in North and Latin America, 74% in Europe and 64% in Asia-Pacific. Moreover, executives said they were finding the tool more valuable, ranking it eighth in satisfaction this year.

What's behind the growing adoption of scenario and contingency planning? Three factors stand out: experience gained over time through trial and error, an improvement in the tool itself as more companies discovered a need for it and a broader appreciation of scenario and contingency planning as events like Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina clarified just why such planning was necessary.

Our data show that scenario and contingency planning's use and satisfaction levels are highest among large companies (those with annual revenue exceeding $2 billion) and in particular, among health care, energy and gas and transportation companies.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car's experience is telling and fits the general pattern. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the rental-car company struggled to match customers' demands to rent cars one-way to drive home, or simply away from New York—all in exception to the firm's then round-trip rental rule. Four years later, after Hurricane Katrina had roared through New Orleans, Enterprise was better prepared to cope with the urgent need for cars by customers, insurance agents and relief personnel. Despite having 24 facilities severely damaged or under water, Enterprise began moving some 11,000 vehicles into the devastated area from Mississippi, Alabama and other parts of Louisiana. Houston became the regional hub for the area's remaining 45 rental centers, coping with more than 1,000 one-way drop-offs.

Not every company can anticipate such a calamity, but they need a working Plan B, C or D. As an increasingly important discipline in turbulent times, scenario and contingency planning enables executives to explore and prepare for several alternative futures.

Perhaps even more important than planning for a catastrophe, such arrangements help executives examine the outcomes a company might expect under a variety of operating strategies and economic conditions. It allows them to move toward a future they have mapped out, reckoning with expected trends such as the changes wrought by globalization, and having a process in place, at a minimum, to deal with the unexpected.

While no crystal ball, scenario and contingency planning helps companies create a future that is based neither on a single bold prediction nor one that comes as a complete surprise.

Darrell Rigby, a partner in Boston with Bain & Company, founded and directs the firm's Management Tools & Trends Survey.