Timelines and the Future
Robust decisions in uncertain times
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History as a launch pad for foresight:
• Robert Textor, Ethnographic Futures -- the
rubber band effect.
• Paul Saffo, Technological Forecasting -twice as far back as forward.
• Layering history of different sectors:
• Analysing different patterns of change.
• Identifying different speeds of change.
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Timeline layers: Differentials
Robust decisions in uncertain times
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Horizon scanning
Robust decisions in uncertain times
Mapping a trend’s diffusion into public awareness
from its starting point as an emerging issue of
system limits;
problems develop;
change.
Number of
cases;
degree of
public
awareness
global; multiple
dispersed cases; trends
and drivers
unintended
impacts
3rd horizon
institutions and
government
newspapers; news
magazines; broadcast
media
laypersons’ magazines;
websites; documentaries
local; few
cases;
Pockets of
specialists’ journals and
future found emerging
websites
issues
In present
scientists; artists; radicals;
“present” mystics
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Time
“future”
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Horizon scanning
Robust decisions in uncertain times

Beginning of research,
not the end;

“N of 1”;

”Environment” refers to the information environment –
all media – and ”scanning” to logically structured,
continuous monitoring of data sources.
Unearths
contradictions;

Subjective, not
objective;
High quality scanning:

“Unscientific” sources;

Systems-based;

Unfamiliar concepts.
•
Primary futures tool for identifying and monitoring
emerging change.
•
Related to issues management and competitive
intelligence.
•
•
– identifies an emerging issue that is objectively
new even to experts,
–
confirms or is confirmed by additional scan hits,
and
–
has been identified in time for social dialogue,
impact assessment, and policy formation.
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Scanning + 3 Horizons
Robust decisions in uncertain times
 Scanning provides a starting point to monitor
possible transformative / disruptive changes.
 3 Horizons helps us organise and consider the
interplay of trends and emerging changes.
 Uses:
 Challenge obsolescing assumptions;
 Spot emerging constraints / opportunities;
 Get beyond incrementalism.
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The 3 Horizons framework
Robust decisions in uncertain times
Three Horizons Framework for Layering Change Life-cycles
B Sharp, T Hodgson, A Curry
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Origins of 3 Horizons framework
Robust decisions in uncertain times
• UK Foresight Intelligent Infrastructure Systems (IIS)
Project
•
•
•
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Perspective: long-term time horizon
Need: technology road-mapping that reflects generations of
technological innovation
Researchers: Bill Sharpe, Tony Hodgson, Andrew Curry
Publications and articles:
– IIS Technology Forward Look; Sharpe and Hodgson
– Seeing in Multiple Horizons: Connecting Futures to Strategy; Curry and
Hodgson
• Method now in wide use, book collecting case studies being
developed
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Differences in the 3 Horizons
Robust decisions in uncertain times
Three Horizons: Functional differences
B Sharp, T Hodgson, A Curry
Dominance of worldview
Horizon 2:
Entrepreneurs
Horizon 1:
Managers
Incremental
adaptation &
innovation
Status quo,
momentum,
inertia
Horizon 3:
Visionary Leaders
Emerging
change &
visions
Pockets of the
future found in the
present
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Questions for each horizon
Robust decisions in uncertain times
• What are the current working assumptions and systems of
production and marketing? What are you taking for granted
when you make management decisions (horizon 1)?
• What changes are emerging as completely new paradigms and
means to understand and undertake various human activities
(horizon 3)? What are visionary leaders saying?
• Which of the immediate changes you see represent a
transition or accommodation for evolving tensions as current
assumptions and work patterns obsolesce, and transformative
changes erupt into possibility (horizon 2)? What opportunities
do you see? What are entrepreneurs building?
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