Guidance
Three Horizons: facilitation worksheet
Published 29 August 2024
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This worksheet is for the user to adapt and fill in as needed – timings and wording are suggestions only and will need to be tailored to the user’s context. This template is for the basic version of the Three Horizons exercise outlined in the Futures Toolkit. Read other Futures Toolkit resources.
Scoping question:
Participants:
| Time | Activity | Content | Notes | |
| - | - | - | - | |
| -00:30 | Set up | If face-to-face, you will need note pads, pens, sticky notes. Make sure that you are able to put flip charts up on a wall. Provide space for each group to work, and display a Three Horizons diagram large enough for participants to populate with stickies during the session. You may want to have one of these per group, and another at the front of the room to capture plenary discussions. If virtual, make sure that you have prepared your online whiteboard with the Three Horizons template. You will need to be able to use breakout rooms for group discussions. Display the Scoping Question prominently. | If you are working virtually, you may need an introduction to the online whiteboard before you start or send a short “how-to guide”. | |
| 00:00 (3 mins) | Introduction and agenda | 1. Introduce/ recap the aims of the project as needed. 2. Explain how this workshop fits in with any wider futures process. 3. Then introduce the workshop, what people will do and what the outcomes will be. 4. Share the agenda. | Slide: Agenda: 1. Introduction to the Three Horizons Tool. 2. Horizon One. 3. Horizon Three. 4. Horizon Two. 5. Debrief | |
| 00:03 (12 mins) | Introduction to Three Horizons | Three Horizons is a tool to help you gain insight into what you have discovered in your horizon scanning. It allows you to stand in TODAY and cast your thinking both backwards into the past and forwards into futures. It helps to frame a constructive conversation where both the present and its limitations, and different potential futures, can be examined and linked, while the way to bridge from today to a preferred tomorrow can be co-created. Explain the Three Horizons template: 1. Horizon One explores our shared assumptions of what is here today. Some of these will still be here in 30 years, some will not. 2. Horizon Three, looks out 30-50 years out into the future – what new things will emerge? What things will stay the same? 3. Horizon Two brings it together, it allows us to brainstorm how you might make the bridge between today and 2050. Any questions? | Slide: Three Horizons diagram | |
| Horizon One | ||||
| 00:15 (60-70 mins) | Horizon One: current operating assumptions | What do you take for granted in your operating environment? For instance, we may assume that we will have electricity 24/7. Yet there are places in the world where this is not the case – try to dig in and find basic assumptions. Ask people to think about the following: 1. Operating models. 2. Primary products. 3. Organisational processes. 4. Suppliers/supply chain. 5. Customers/stakeholders. 6. Advertising. 7. Government regulations. 8. Funding. 9. What else? Place a sticky on the Horizon One timeline. Report back from each group. Reflect and challenge assumptions. | Put a few examples on the Horizon One timeline. People should place stickies on the Horizon. One timeline at appropriate time. You may like to colour-code your stickies by Horizon. Facilitators to report back on highlights. Consolidate doubles and group similar assumptions. | |
| 01:15 (10 mins) | Break | Review and tidy up board. | ||
| Horizon Three | ||||
| 01:25 (10 mins) | Introduction to emerging trends | You could do a presentation of some exciting emerging trends – focusing on ones that might be new to people | Optional | |
| 01:35 (10 mins) | Results from Horizon Scanning exercise | You could make a presentation on what you have assembled from your Horizon Scanning work, picking out “weak signals” | Optional | |
| 01:45 (30–45 mins) | Horizon Three: Pockets of the future visible today | What are the emerging issues and novel changes transforming the world in general and your sector or policy area in particular? How might trends play out in 30 years? What are the most interesting and surprising changes you’ve heard about recently? What are the most transformational changes you see emerging? One idea to each post-it with an approximate date. | Place at least one example on the timeline to help people. In your breakout groups, you’ll have 25 minutes. Put on the Horizon Three curve at the approximate date. | |
| 02:15 (15 mins) | Reflections | Discussing key ideas, highlighting issues that need to be addressed. What are your insights? | In plenary. On timeline. Add items that have not been “noticed”. | |
| 02:30 (10 mins) | Break | Review populated Three Horizons board | ||
| Horizon Two | ||||
| 02:40 (40 mins) | Assumptions challenged | We are working now on Horizon Two, which links One and Three. Look back to Horizon One assumptions that need to be addressed and are challenged by emerging changes from Horizon Three. Review the assumptions and the emerging issues: 1. Which assumptions are most vulnerable? 2. Which assumptions will you need to abandon? 3. Which assumptions are strengthened and will still be around in the future? | Slide: Three Horizons diagram with stickies. In your breakout groups. Feedback to plenary in the last 10 mins | |
| 03:20 (40 mins) | Mitigation | For this session: 1. Pick a Horizon One assumption that is being challenged. 2. Pair with the Horizon Three emerging change that is challenging it. 3. Brainstorm ideas of what you could do to mitigate the challenge. 4. You may also choose two that present opportunities and brainstorm some new futures with them. Each group to look at several emerging changes that will allow you to come up with interesting transition ideas. | In your breakout groups. Feedback in plenary in the last 15 mins | |
| 04:00 (10 mins) | Break | Review populated Three Horizons board | ||
| 04:10 (15 mins) | Reflections | Share ideas: How would those emerging perspectives change what your policy area does? How would they change what you need to do? What steps can you take now? | ||
| 04:25 (5 mins) | Wrap up | We’ve covered the Three Horizons and looked at some of your ideas for how trends may emerge and what that means for your policy area and what you need to do. Questions? Thank participants. | ||
| 04:30 (Including optional presentations) | Close | Write up the findings. It is important also to capture the creative thinking that has occurred in each Horizon. This can be fed into further strategy and policy thinking. | Save a high-resolution copy or photograph of the board. |