Developed by Bill Sharpe (Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope, 2013), Anthony Hodgson (Deepening Futures with System Structure, with Sharpe, 2007), and Andrew Curry (Seeing in Multiple Horizons, with Hodgson, 2008), adapting McKinsey's three horizons of growth.
Maps three patterns running at once (the dominant system in decline, the emerging one that could replace it, and the contested transition between them) to decide where to invest.
When to reach for it
When an organization senses its current model is losing fit and must sort the experiments that prolong it from those that build what comes next.
How it runs
- Map the first horizon: today's dominant system and where it is failing.
- Describe the third: the emerging pattern that would replace it.
- Map the second: the experiments and innovations between the two.
- Sort transition moves: those propping up the old, those building the new.
- Decide what to defend, what to carry through, and what to seed.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
Go to the source
- Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope, Triarchy Press, 2013
- Deepening Futures with System Structure, chapter 5 of Scenarios for Success: Turning Insights into Action, Wiley; with Bill Sharpe, 2007
- Seeing in Multiple Horizons: Connecting Futures to Strategy, Journal of Futures Studies 13(1), with Anthony Hodgson, 2008