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