three horizons | Hinesight....for Foresight

by Andy Hines on April 29, 2020 2 Comments

Three Horizons of After Capitalism

Here’s how After Capitalism is using the handy Horizons Framework. It is intended primarily to show the evolution of the concepts over time, and to provide a very rough estimate of timing.

The X-axis is time. (NOTE: Three Horizons does not prescribe timeframes for each horizon.)

The timing depends on the topic. Some topics change quickly (mobile communications) and some slowly (forestry). For After Capitalism, I pegged the current Horizon 1 (H1) system of Neoliberal Capitalism as having perhaps another decade of preeminence – to 2030. Then, the Horizons transition concepts that I’m calling Collaborative Sharing Platforms, which are already in existence to some extent today, become more prevalent. I am suggesting a decade or two for this Horizon Two (H2) transition – from 2030 to 2040/2050. These rough estimates suggest the Horizon Three (H3) is at least 20 or 30 years always. It is important to keep in mind that these are rough ballpark estimates.

The Y-axis is strategic fit, or how well is the horizon fitting with the context. The framework shows how the systems of each horizon shift over time.

H1, Neoliberal Capitalism, has the highest degree of strategic fit in the present, but is in decline by 2030 and fades away by 2040/2050.
H2, the Collaborative Sharing Platforms, has some degree of fit in the present, becomes preeminent in 2030, but it declines in the 2040/2050 timeframe.
H3, the three Transformation Images, have a low degree of fit in the present, pick up steam in H2 and eventually one, or some combination of them, becomes the new system in the 2040-/20505 timeframe.

Again, the years are just estimates! – Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on March 16, 2017 Leave a Comment

Geeking out on Three Horizons

Just finished Bill Sharpe’s Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope, 2013. I often refer to a slide below as my “desert island” slide. That is, if I had one slide to explain the future, this would be it. It comes from Andrew Curry and Tony Hodgson, who wrote”Seeing in Multiple Horizons,” an article for the Journal of Futures Studies that I nominated for an APF MSFW award (which it won).

We have also incorporated three horizons language into our “domain description” template in the “Framing” step of Framework Foresight, in which we set the timeframe of our domain (the topic we are exploring). We also use the Three Horizons model to situate our scanning, as we label scanning hits according to which time horizon they indicate.

My initial introduction to the concept was to the McKinsey version in the Alchemy of Growth. When I took the job as Ideation Leader in New Business Development at Dow Chemical, I was handed that book and told to read it. One of my rules of thumb, “when in Rome….” so I adopted the Three Horizons language and model. It actually appeared in my 2003 article “Organizational Futurist Audit” as “Know Your Time Horizon.”

At this point you may be thinking, he likes this Three Horizons! Indeed!

So, that takes me to Bill Sharpe’s book. The background was useful, I hope, to illustrate how it has changed my thinking on the three horizons. My experience with the Mckinsey version led me to think of H2 as space of line extensions. H1 as the current product line, H2 as extension, and H3 as really new stuff. I don’t believe it is totally at odds with the Sharpe (and Curry and Hodgson) conception, but it is different. What the book brought home for me (and maybe I should have seen this earlier) is that the key transition is not from H1 to H2, but rather from H1 to H3, with H2 as a zone of transition. We move from H1 to H3, and H2 is “where tensions and transitions are played out between the continuous improvement of H1 and the transformative possibilities of H3.”

It can help us with clients to reframe H2 innovations as going somewhere else, so to speak. A neat concept in the book notes that some innovations are “absorbed” by the existing H2 system – what he calls H1 capture — while others take us forward to the third horizon — the h2+ innovations.

I found that distinction made the book worthwhile. It’s a short book, and as the title implies, there is a fair bit of it on the “hope” aspect. As a methods geek, I didn’t find that as helpful. And there are some case studies that some may find useful as well. I’m very happy to have read it and it’s making me think about how it fits with our interpretation of the archetype methods. Hmmmm. Andy Hines

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by Andy Hines on November 25, 2015 Leave a Comment

Three Horizons of Work

I had the pleasure of participating on a panel exploring the future of work at the GAO for IFPTE Local 1921annual union meeting. We had ten or fifteen minutes to talk – quite a challenge given all the interesting things happening in the future of work. I decided to organize it around the Three Horizons Model (see Curry and Hodgson’s wonderful paper).

I selected three issues, going from the long-term to the short.

(Horizon Three) The transformation of work. Work is going through a transformation, as three driving forces — the rise of automation and machine intelligence, shifts in individual values, and the rise of a new economy – are challenging key assumptions about the role of work are being challenged: (1) work is central to individual’s identity (2) work structures daily life, and (3) work is the primary source of income.

(Horizon Two) Hey, that’s cheating: Augmentation in the workplace. Augmented or enhanced human characteristics will present challenges for organizations and individual talent. Significant technology advances, from mechanical implants to chemical, genetic, and nanotech-enabled approaches, are making human augmentation a reality.

(Horizon One) Fairness becomes impossible. The need to customize and personalize to attract talent will make across-the-board, same-for-everyone types of policies increasingly untenable. The high premium on getting the right talent shifts the bargaining power to them, and they will use it.

It was great fun to share and discuss, and to sneak in a very useful foresight framework. Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on December 9, 2021 Leave a Comment

Purposes of Foresight work and Time Horizons

What are the purposes of foresight work? Back in 2009 futurist Richard Slaughter attempted to answer that question by classifying several hundred foresight works globally by the three interests or purposes.

Pragmatic: doing today’s work better
Progressive: moving beyond today’s practices
Civilizational: creating the foundations of the next world civilization

Perhaps it was no surprise that most work was in the pragmatic category, followed by progressive, and the least amount of work being civilizational. A key objective of his futures work has been to encourage more progressive and ideally more civilizational foresight work. When a member of the original research team, Chris Riedy revisited the work (as part of Knowledge Base of Futures Studies 2020), he did not see a significant shift in the purposes of foresight work, although he did cite several positive developments in the field.

It occurred to me that these purposes align with the popular Three Horizons framework. The figure suggests the alignment as follows:

Pragmatic work will most typically be in Horizon 1, the current system.
Progressive work will most often be aimed at Horizon 2, the zone of transition.
Civilization work seeking to create a new system will most commonly be aimed at Horizon 3.

Rather than an exclusive focus on one purpose or another, perhaps our project work engages all three? Futurists mostly focus on exploring horizons 2 and 3, but our recommendations will engage horizon 1 as we tie the future to the present. And we will also engage multiple horizons within a project, touching on all three purposes. We may encourage clients to stretch their thinking by engaging H3, extend their thinking in H2, as well as pragmatically consider what needs to be done in H1. — Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on January 5, 2021 2 Comments

Scenario archetypes across 3 horizons

When we explain our four archetype scenarios, often someone will ask whether there is a pattern in how the four archetypes unfold, i.e., is there a typical progression or order? My response has been – we think so, but we can’t prove it. Finally, we’re going to try! My students Lavonne Leong, Monica Jamaluddin, and Heather Benoit are taking the plunge with me.

In our core Framework Foresight process, when we get to alternative futures/scenarios, we use four archetypes as shapes or patterns of change that can be used to map the future of any domain.

We start with the baseline future (aka Continuation) that projects the current system, or way of doing things, forward without any major disruptions of surprises. This is of course Horizon 1 (H1).
We finish with the transformation future, the new system that eventually replaces the old baseline. This is Horizon 3 (H3).

To recap, we have the baseline as Horizon 1 and transformation as H3.

So, how do get from H1 to H3? Via the Horizon 2 (H2) zone of transition. Our starting hypothesis is that there are two major types of transitions from H1 to H3.
- Collapse: the baselines systems fall into a collapse or highly dysfunctional state, which eventually leads to its replacement by a new system (the H3 transformation)
- New equilibrium: the baseline is challenged or disrupted and responds to “save itself.” It is frightened by potential magnitude of H3 transformation change, and makes as little change as possible as it seeks to maintain the integrity of the current baseline system. This is a more gradual approach to H3 transformation, in which the New Equilibrium scenario is a gradual transition space on the way to eventual transformation.

Foe example, in the graphic, we start with the baseline of Good to Go in H1, and eventually get to New Frontier in H3. But does it go via H2 Breaking Orbit, which follows New Equilibrium, or does it go via H2 Failure to Launch, which is the collapse archetype?

The research will involve identifying domains that have historical sets of scenarios that we can track and see if or how they mapped to the archetypes and the three horizons. For instance, if we go back twenty years and look at a set of scenarios that projected on the future of work, and compare it to how the future of work actually unfolded. Did it follow the archetypes? Did it move along the three horizons? Did it unfold via archetypes that follow along the three horizons? (jackpot) — Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on August 8, 2023 2 Comments

Why Societies Collapse from Jared Diamond

Our preliminary research at Houston Foresight into how domains evolve over the Three Horizons suggests collapse is not the typical route to transformation; rather a gradual iteration of new equilibria appears to be more common. Yet it is almost conventional wisdom that crisis is the key enabler of transformational change. Perhaps it is our understanding of collapse that is misinformed? So I decided to take a look at some of the collapse literature and see what might be learned as we start to dig into paths to After Capitalism.

Diamond, the author of Pulitizer Prize winner Guns, Germs, & Steel (one of my all-time favorites), followed it up with Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Success, which is spot-on for our Collapse series.

He pulls no punches. Collapse is not some sort of romantic mystery, but rather pretty straightforward and often resulting from environmental problems not dissimilar to ones we face today. Gulp! Take a look at this progression on the road to disaster:

1) failure to anticipate a problem before it arrived

2) failing to perceive a problem that has arrived (a boiling frog phenomenon)

3) failure to even attempt to solve a problem after it is perceived (either because the status quo is good for some, or more irrational motives such as values, religion, groupthink or denial).

4) difficulties solving the problem once its identified (it’s too hard, too costly or too late).

Dare I ask where you think we are?

The book goes through several historical case examples. He observes that some perceived “romantic mystery collapses, such as Easter Island and the Anasazi, were really self-inflicted ecological suicides.For a contemporary example, (he was writing in 2005), he cited the example of Montana. He noted that if Montana were an isolated country, it would have been in a state of collapse. It had been one of the wealthiest states in America based on copper mining, forestry and agriculture. Then it became very poor. Mining was gone, leaving behind terrible environmental damage, and logging and farming were also in decline. 70% of the children in Montana were on food aid. Montana had terrible forest fires, salinisation, erosion, weeds and animal diseases. These kinds of problems were faced by some countries at the time, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the reason Montana didn’t collapse of course is that it was embedded within a rich country.

So what are the key factors behind collapses?

Environmental damage, inadvertent damage to the environment through means such as deforestation, soil erosion, salinisation, over-hunting etc.
Climate change, such as cooling or increased aridity. People can hammer away at their environment and get away with it as long as the climate is benign, warm, wet, and the people are likely to get in trouble when the climate turns against them, getting colder or drier. So climate change and human environmental impact interact, not surprisingly.
Relations with hostile neighbours. Societies can fail to hold off the hostile neighbours when the society itself gets weakened for environmental or any other reasons, e.g., barbarians and the Roman Empire.
Relations with friendlies. The friends of a society can run into environmental problems and collapses for environmental reasons, that collapse may then drag down their trade partners.
People’s cultural response. Why did some peoples perceive and recognise their problems and others not? See the 4 factors on the road to disaster above.

A final interesting observation is the insulation of the decision-making elite from the consequences of their actions. That is to say, in societies where the elites do not suffer from the consequences of their decisions, but can insulate themselves, the elite are more likely to pursue their short-term interests. Think rich people living in gated communities and drinking bottled water.

In sum, Diamond’s work suggests the possibility of Collapse is very real. In a later talk, he observed that historically, collapsed societies could be bailed out by others or move – if the planet collapses …. – Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on July 12, 2023 Leave a Comment

Why Foresight

It was great to catch up with my old PTIS packaging foresight buddies at our last Strategic Foresight Boot Camp. PTIS has built a business around exploring the future of packaging. They asked me to share some thoughts about foresight in their most recent newsletter. I decided to focus on what is foresight useful for.

Let’s start with three basic facts!

1. Nobody likes to be caught by surprise.

2. Most of us would rather not be in reactive mode either.

3. And some of us really like to be ahead of the game.

Foresight and futurists can help with all three.

I’ll share our recently updated definition of foresight that includes the basic value proposition:

Foresight as the study of change that uses a systematic methodology to explore the future in order to make better decisions today by helping us move us toward the futures we want and avoid those we don’t, and to ultimately build confidence in the future by building our capacity to avoid surprise!

We know that many people come to us confused by what seems to be a non-stop avalanche of change. One thing we can help with immediately is sorting out the timing of the change. We use a Three Horizons framework that organizes change into those influencing today’s world (Horizon 1), the emerging future (Horizon 2), and the long-term future (H3). This helps you be more discerning about change.

Read full article in PTIS Newsletter — Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on May 31, 2023 Leave a Comment

Houston Archetype Technique Updated

Not new, but updated … as promised in a previous post. To recap, for several years we and our audiences at the Houston Foresight program thought we saw likely patterns in how domains evolve over time using archetypes and the Three Horizons. We use a customized version of Jim Dator’s Archetype technique (see Evolution of Framework Foresight).

We (finally) did the research by gathering and analyzing historical scenario sets. We identified those using or aligning with the archetypes and observing, with the benefit of hindsight, whether the domains did in fact follow a pattern along the three horizons. The paper has been through revisions and is still in the pipeline. (It is taking such a long time – peer review is broken, but that’s for another post.)

The most significant change to the original graphic is that the super-talented Denise Worrell re-designed it (Denise is part of the research team along with myself, Heather Benoit, Lavonne Leong, Laura Schlehuber, and Adam Cowart.) On the graphic, we explicitly added the three horizons label. We already had put forth the idea of two versions of transformation in the early version. Now that we have used it in practice a few times, we like it and it’s here to stay. We should be able to share an example publicly soon (another piece stuck in a review process). We also added some design polish, i.e., shading and a redesigned logo.

Now, for a little sneak preview of the research findings. The key purpose of the research is to see if there is a pattern in the flow of a domain through the archetypes and across the three horizons. There are two obvious candidates.

Baseline > New Equilibrium > Transformation
Baseline > Collapse> Transformation

Of these two, we thought the answer was obvious. We appear to be wrong. Care to guess? – Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on July 20, 2022 Leave a Comment

History is vital to the future

I just finished Wilkinson and Kupers’ very nice “The Essence of Scenarios: Learning from the Shell Experience,” which reviews went through the history of scenario planning at Shell. And within the last year I enjoyed Chermack’s Foundations of Scenario Planning: The Story of Pierre Wack, which focused on the central role of Pierre Wack at Shell. What great and valuable lessons from history.

History helps ground us in “reality.” These peeks behind the Shell curtain, for example, should help us all feel a little better. Shell has rightfully earned a place as the gold standard in the foresight world for their continuous 50-year commitment to scenarios and the future. That is amazing and to my knowledge unparalleled commitment. But it wasn’t all bunnies and rainbows for them …. either. The scenarios capability had its ups and downs. It had the typical struggles with legitimacy, senior management acceptance, and even several geographies remained skeptics. Wilkinson noted that the function was almost discontinued three times.

A second valuable contribution of history is in providing us with a more nuanced understanding of how change actually happens. At Houston Foresight, we’ve been gathering historical scenario sets to see how the domains or topics they mapped actually evolved over time. We are testing some ideas about potential patterns involving scenario archetypes and the three horizons. More on that later. But one thing has popped loud and clear: domains are generally changing slower than we thought. If change is slower, and if there are patterns in how the change is taking place, it sure does behoove us to know our history!!!

Full disclosure: I double-majored in history and political science before getting my Master’s at the University of Houston Foresight Program, which I share mostly to fist-bump my co-conspirators with this background! – Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on July 13, 2022 3 Comments

Automated Scanning: The State of Play

We at Houston Foresight get asked fairly frequently about what is the best automated scanning tool. Our response is that there seem to be lots of them out there, we watch, we ask, we try, and as of yet haven’t found one that’s “it.” That day will come. The tools are getting better all the time … as they have been for the last 25 years or so that I’ve been exposed to them. I think I have a healthy fear and paranoia about missing the next big thing. We need to be on top of this. At the same time, relax and breathe.

My sense of the human vs machine scanning is that much of the push to automate is based on what I’d say is a faulty assumption about what scanning provides. There is a sense that scanning will uncover the “hidden gems.” That it will find an insight that no one else know about. I say “good luck.” There is just too much info and too many people looking to make that any kind of reliable basis for scanning. There may be a few instances where such a focus is useful, but for the vast preponderance of foresight work, scanning is gathering and sorting signals in organized way to get a sense of potential change ahead in a domain. We like the simple three horizons framework to organize the signals. Our experience is that any “hidden gems” of change will be picked up fairly early in horizon three – long before they have an impact on the domain (that is before they reach horizon one). It takes years … really decades. If you do your regular scanning, you will not miss a hidden gem!

Put another way, in our typical three-month project, a team of 3-6 scanners can get a handle on the scanning/signals of change in a domain in 4-6 weeks doing it part-time. If any of my prior scanners want to chime in here, we’d love to here you confirm (or deny) this. Much more scanning than that for a project is overkill [note: ongoing scanning is a different thing].

Nonetheless, you may be getting pressure to update, automate, and take advantage of all the great big data, analytics, machine learning, AI and stuff that should be revolutionizing scanning. Be very wary about those who say they have the answer. I have heard these kinds of claims, and unless it happened yesterday, I personally haven’t seen it yet. Use your good consumer commonsense. My advice, if you have the time and budget, is to go ahead and try as many of the tools as you can. Compare, contrast, and pick one that you believe in the people and in the tool. Sure, there are snake oil salespeople, but there are also smart, wonderful, and well-intentioned people trying to good things – when you find those people, go on the journey with them. There is no doubt in my mind that scanning will be more and more automated and in a useful way – eventually. – Andy Hines

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