Mapping archetype scenarios across the three horizons

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that mapping of archetype scenarios onto the three horizons could provide a useful starting point for understanding change in a domain. It was observed in practice that the combination of a scenario archetype technique and the Three Horizons framework seemed to generate a useful pattern in the relative importance of the archetype scenarios according to the time horizon. In short, a baseline archetype seemed to be most prevalent in Horizon 1, either a Collapse or New Equilibrium archetype in Horizon 2, and a Transformation in H3. To test this idea, 78 historical scenario sets conducive to the archetype technique were identified, and the proposed pattern was tested against the how the domains actually unfolded over time. The results indeed suggested some evidence for the pattern. They also raised a series of interesting research questions for the futures community going forward.