Three Horizons Mapping

• Pre-session preparation sheet sent one week before.
• Three Horizons map with documented H1, H2, and H3 elements.
• Named tensions between horizons — the specific points where H1 and H3 are in active conflict.
• Working consensus on transition priorities — what deserves protection, what deserves investment, what should be retired.

I send a preparation sheet the week before asking each participant to write down three things: one thing about the organisation that must be protected, one thing they see emerging that the organisation hasn't fully addressed, and one thing they'd want to be true about the organisation in fifteen years. This takes fifteen minutes and means the session starts with real material rather than blank-slate discussion.

In the session, we build a Three Horizons map together. H1 is what the organisation is currently managing and protecting — the things that work, that have to keep working, that fund everything else. H3 is an aspirational horizon — what the organisation would need to look like to remain relevant and meaningful at a fifteen-year view. H2 is the connective tissue: the emerging signals, experiments, and transitions that link what you are now to what you can become.

During a half-day session we aim to identify what everyone can agree is valuable, regardless of whether they identify with the H1 or H3 perspective. The goal is to help the team see their positions from a different angle — not necessarily to change their views, but to open up more ways in which change can happen. In a full-day session we take more time to identify the pivotal H2 trends and signals that can bridge this gap and move the team toward more integrated futures thinking.

Three Horizons is a tool for a conversation that otherwise goes in circles. When people can see that they're arguing from different horizons — not different values — the argument changes character.