Visualising Change
Creating Intentional Futures
Three Horizons and Challenge Mapping
This piece is part of our Visualising Change series, written in October 2021. For an introduction to the series, and to access other pieces as they become available, look for the tab on our publication.
Here we focus on two tools we use fairly regularly — Three Horizons and Challenge Mapping (otherwise known as mission mapping¹), and on a new iteration that brings them together. Using them in this way we are aiming to create stronger bridges between “what’’ and “how’’ when organising for change.
Three Horizons: envisioning future possibilities
In different settings Three Horizons is described as a tool, framework or model. Developed by members of the International Futures Forum², the framework is a “way of working with change” (Sharpe, 2020;p.2). It makes possible futures both visible and accessible and highlights the mindsets, intentions and actions that may be needed over time in order to bring about positive change.
In our work, we are primarily interested in growing impact — and particularly in impact that supports transitions towards regenerative and distributive economies. In this context, we find the Three Horizons framework useful for working through what may need to change as we work to generate and improve impact. Drawing on the work of the International Futures Forum– we summarise below some key points relevant to our context.
Three Horizons is designed to open up linear views of change — that make the future appear unknown, unknowable and risky — and to make the different ways we bring it into being more visible. The framework is depicted below and shows three horizons spanning the present and the future — providing a “way to think about the future that recognises deep uncertainty but responds with an active orientation” (Sharpe, 2020;p. 19).
Horizon 1
- Is the current way of doing things
- We depend on H1 systems to get things done in the world
- Mostly don’t need or want to think about them too much, and we help perpetuate these systems by taking part in them
- Innovation and change are happening, but mostly efforts go into sustaining and extending the way things are done now (the lights must be kept on!)
- But … many of these systems are falling short and/or are out of step with emerging conditions
Horizon 3
- Our envisioned future systems, that we hypothesise are a better fit with emerging needs and opportunities
- Focussed on transformative change and new patterns beyond the reach of H1 systems
- There are usually many competing visions for the future, and early versions of these can often look quite unrealistic (some are!)
- H3 helps identify these different visions, and to understand what is influencing them
Horizon 2
- The transition and transformation zone — emerging innovations responding to shortcomings of H1 and anticipating possibilities of H3
- New ways of doing things emerge in messy ways — through combinations of deliberate actions and opportunistic adaptations
- H2 is an ambiguous territory, with many (often competing) entrepreneurs jostling for positions around emerging opportunities and pathways
- There is a strong pull towards the ‘tried and true’ — typically established H1 players dominate the discourse and the practice
- H2 can help make visible which of the competing ‘solutions’ may be most effective in moving us towards H3 aspirations and to pull away from the vested interests of H1 actors
Three Horizons is a really useful framework for making visible and getting clearer on WHAT needs to happen to create pathways towards the desired (third horizon) future. The second horizon begins to give a sense of HOW some of that may happen — through identifying potential ‘stepping stone’ initiatives. But we think more granularity is needed, across a range of dimensions, if we’re going to shift what we learn from this into directed action. And it is this insight that has led us to explore how we could extend the framework through adding another framework we work with — Challenge Mapping.
Now enter Challenge + Impact Mapping
We’ve recently adopted a mission-led approach to our research design + development + demonstration (R+3D) work³. We think this approach helps with exploring how the interests of multiple and diverse actors in specific domains of impact can become better aligned so as to improve effectiveness and accelerate transition towards H3 aspirations.
As a result we’re doing a lot of work around how to build on interests in demonstrating impact at a project or organisational level in ways that start to shift thinking and practice towards a broader context of change. Increasingly it is clear that we need to understand systems of inter-connected activities in order to create transformational change agendas — and that involves many actors experimenting and learning their way towards more positive futures. Here the focus shifts from WHAT to HOW to organise change processes. To do this, we use a Challenge Mapping process.
The core framework for Challenge Mapping is based on the mission maps developed by Mazzucato et al. (see above). We’ve iterated these, and have begun applying the version outlined here in work we’re doing both in Australia and internationally. Because Australia is a colonised nation the terminology of ‘missions’ is fraught. So we are using ‘challenges’ (rather than ‘missions’) — meaning ‘requiring intentional action in order to create change’.
The Directional Goal
As you can see, the map starts with the goal towards which we are directing action (e.g. one of the high-level SDGs). Importantly, the Challenge Map is not suggesting a linear, strategic planning approach to creating change. Rather, like the Three Horizons framework, we are seeking to visualise and organise the learning needed to direct innovation towards a goal. The goal is the north-star for learning our way towards a positive future, so it sets the direction for innovation rather than serving as a destination per se.
The Challenge (a.k.a. Mission)
Because they are high level, every directional goal will require innovation and investment into a range of different challenges. Challenges are still broad — but bring more specificity around what will need to happen to shift action towards the bold directional goal.
Critical Actors
By their nature, challenges will only be achieved by working with a whole range of actors, stakeholders, participants and collaborators from across different sectors — actors that can work bottom-up as well as those who work top-down. So the next part of the map speaks to who may need to be involved and how.
The Impact Projects (with Impact Maps)
Finally, (but importantly) are all the innovation or demonstration ‘projects’ that will be needed in order to learn our way towards addressing a challenge. Projects signify there is a need to learn or experiment around known unknowns needed to address a challenge; or to ‘probe’ our way into making sense of ‘unknowns’. With the sorts of challenges we are facing around the world, in many cases deeper demonstration projects may be needed — to tackle trickier issues and may require much more radical innovation.
Using the Challenge Mapping approach, each project sets out an articulation of the innovation hypothesis — i.e. what the learning proposition is around what should be done, how it should be done and what results (both short term and longer term) are expected. This process articulates the relationships between the layers of change, learning and action. The individual project impact maps provide a degree of accountability amongst the actors involved, without needing to necessarily all agree on all elements — just that each is contributing to an overall directional goal.
Three Horizons + Challenge Mapping
We have used both the tools outlined above in a variety of contexts, and are now experimenting with using them together. Here we outline our current thinking about why we think this is useful and what we are finding so far.
Three Horizons is a really useful tool for making visible and getting clearer on WHAT needs to happen to create pathways towards the desired (H3 goal) future. The second horizon begins to give a sense of HOW some of that may happen — through identifying potential ‘stepping stone’ initiatives.
Undertaking a Three Horizons exercise helps groups of actors work through the overall directional goal they can agree on, and to better understand the various pathways that could contribute to bringing about the desired change. But, what we’ve noticed, is that it can generate somewhat one-dimensional visions for how we get from H1 to H3 (via H2 pathways) — as actors tend to focus on what they could do themselves and/or list out single or a ‘wish-list’ of actions to undertake in their own contexts. What can be missing is an overall view of the multi-actor and (often) cross-sector experiments, involving diverse portfolios of action, that will be needed in order to learn our way towards the directional goal.
The Challenge Mapping process introduces this perspective — bridging the space between H1 and H3 and helping to identify and shape existing H2 ‘stepping stone’ projects, initiatives and actions to be most effective in transitioning towards broader systems level change⁴. Some of the projects will be working on issues or actions where there is a clear and known connection to one of the challenges — and so there may only need to be some incremental innovation (‘tweaking’ H2 initiatives) in order to ensure that a contribution to the overall goal is achieved.
Other projects may need to be much more radically innovative to test new approaches for working towards H3 aspirations. Each impact project will play a different role in the portfolio of actions. In the figure below we illustrate how the two tools can be combined to help actors establish agreement on WHAT and HOW.
In the first section (vertical lines) through the Three Horizons process actors identify issues with H1 practices and trajectories; in the middle section (circles) the individual projects identified through impact mapping go through a filtering process to explore their efficacy in shifting action out of H1, through H2 and into H3 goal territory. Here the aim is to focus attention on what will establish and sustain pathways with genuinely transformational potential.
This process is useful to undertake initially, when actors come together with an aspiration to collaborate, and then iteratively over time as implementation generates insights and learning. At the start the content may be quite ‘sketchy’ but over time it will become possible to add more detail and generate more ‘thickness’ between the parts.
Where we are now (October 2021)
We are now working with some of our partners exploring use of this combination of tools as a framework for establishing establish agreement on the WHAT (directional goal and challenges/ missions), and then to unpack HOW (challenges/missions and impact projects). The parts can be coherently configured so that learning and insights generated can be organised in ways that will improve effectiveness over time. By communicating these relatively complex ideas, relationships and processes visually we aim to also improve accessibility and engagement.
¹ Developed by Mariana Mazzucato from the IPPP at UCL: see for example, Miedzinski, M. & Mazzucato, M. & Ekins, P. (2019). A framework for mission-oriented innovation policy roadmapping for the SDGs: The case of plastic-free oceans.
² Particularly their publications: Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope (Sharpe, 2020) and Transformative Innovation: A Guide to Practice and Policy for System Transition 2nd Ed) (Leicester, 2020)
³ For explanations of this approach see https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/mariana-mazzucato
⁴ These are referred to as H2- and H2+ — i.e. those likely to loop back into H1 business-as-usual approaches, and those with high potential for genuinely transformational progress towards H3 goals.
