8 Comments
User's avatar
adolvs's avatar

Three Horizons | International Futures Forum. (2012). https://www.internationalfuturesforum.com/three-horizons

found the date, Jun 12 2012.

Expand full comment
John Rousseau's avatar

Thank you, updated.

Expand full comment
Ellen O’Hara's avatar

Really appreciate your questions in the prelude John. Use this framework a lot for individual businesses and am working on a version for the arts and cultural sector; had a few blocks and your questions helped me get unstuck :)

Expand full comment
John Rousseau's avatar

Hi Ellen thanks for your comment; I'm glad it was helpful!

Expand full comment
Elli Thomas's avatar

Thanks for sharing, I'd be interested to hear more about how you arrived at that set of possibilities for the H3 timeline - you mention research, but did you explore axes of uncertainty around this? I think there's some interesting principles to test about potential directions of energy and decarbonisation, futures in AI and alignment, and growth vs degrowth that we are a very long way from a consensus on

Expand full comment
John Rousseau's avatar

Hi Elli,

Thanks for your comment. The H3 signals represent emerging changes that are visible in the present and—to your point—may have significant impact in the future. The framework is incomplete as shown, in that I didn't explore outcomes in the H3 timeframe (that would be the next step in the analysis, followed by populating H2).

I generally use Three Horizons as a workshop tool to create alignment within a group about how they view the present, their assumptions and theories of change regarding the future, and preferred future. Axes of uncertainty and scenario development would come later if following a conventional foresight approach. You're right to point out that these are highly uncertain issues, and a thorough analysis would require accounting for a range of outcomes.

Expand full comment
Jacopo L. Sabba Capetta's avatar

Second time I see this in two days. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing :)

Expand full comment
Jacopo L. Sabba Capetta's avatar

Second time I see this in two days. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing :)

Expand full comment