Within our ‘business as usual’ attitudes lie the seeds of destruction. Today there is a relentless pace; we are facing stagnation in many maturing markets.

We place a disproportionately high amount of our resources in the ‘here and now’ to defend what we have and what we know. A potential ‘big mistake’

We actually subvert the future to prolong the life of the existing. We constantly look to make it more efficient and more effective but this is in the majority of cases just incremental in what we do, both in innovation and our activities. These are often simply propping up the past success instead of shifting the resources into the investments of the future.

Spotting signs of innovating decay

Within the Three Horizon framework for innovation the horizon two is beginning to address some of the current decay arising from the core within the existing activities (or system). Here we have the highest tension point as it is the place for transformation to take shape and form.

We do need to challenge short-term thinking and balance this with this longer-term perspective and we do need to traverse into the future in clear thinking through steps (or horizons).

Our horizon one does begin to decay faster today than ever, it does not fully cover off the strategic fit we want and can begin to lose its dominance over time. We need to manage this transition, not let others manage it for us.

It is how we manage this transition becomes so critical.

We need to exploit developing trends that are emerging (h2) and begin to tune into possible options in the future (h3). Within these options will emerge the winners and become the more dominant systems or solutions that we should be moving towards, even from today. Some of these only have faint emerging signals but they need to be brought into the innovation portfolio activity to explore, often in novel ways.

The discussions that centre on often conflicting views of the future, compared to the existing realities and those providing the returns for today’s business. Often we can detect change but we consciously ignore it. This is the place where the disruptor’s are at work, existing or new competitors, working at displacing your products and market positions.

They look to be more agile, they might have greater entrepreneurial ways, they are ready to explore emerging practices far more than the established leaders, they look to leverage different business models and are certainly not handicapped with legacy and mindsets stuck in the past. Increasing competition is today’s certainty.

Horizon Two needs a totally different mindset.

You need to see H2 with different metrics, with different perspectives, with more open minds. This is not easy. This needs to become the meeting point or “the space for transition” where you begin to let go of just protecting your core and open up your thinking to experimentation, prototyping, exploring different business models and begin to figure out how these will impact your existing core, to become more agile and adaptive than you are in the existing system or structures

These horizon (h2) concepts being explored really do need ‘ring fencing,’ so you can protect these from all the ‘vested’ claims that your horizon one focus will continually demand to keep, so as to bring in the results in this calendar year.

It is a real fight, these ideas or nascent concepts ‘give off’ negative results, they are still a mix of the tangible and intangibles where you can’t get the ‘hard’ fix on the ROI, on their real market value or potential.

The risk of internal executive ‘attack’

Many executives ‘defending’ the core will ‘attack’ or hold back any release of their resources to help these emerging initiatives. It is a ‘hard-nosed’ reality. It needs a very high level and conscious set of decisions coming from the top to determine these new moves.

Do not believe that when most executives ‘just’ react and shrug their shoulders regarding h2 as a natural, everyday occurrence, it is far from not. Many have to come ‘kicking and screaming’ to supporting emerging activities. Far too much ‘invested’ interest comes into play. They see this more as a threat not an opportunity. It is not their sand box so why should they ‘play’.

The Collision Zone (h2) of the Three Horizon Approach

This is why the three horizon approach has real sustaining value because if we don’t have this longer-term, transformational perspective we are just prolonging the existing until it gets disrupted by others.

This is where the working across different horizons for ‘thinking’ through innovation does need different tools and mindsets and these should be based on (h1) see and operate, (h2) adjust your thinking frame and solutions, (h3) more evolutionary.

Each has different techniques to explore as I’ve previously outlined in my navigation guide to this approach.

The tensions are not just visible but played out in many subversive ways.

Just take performance metrics, if these are solely structured on the calendar year, are you realistically expecting a dilution of focus as their compensation is totally caught up in this.

Horizon two poses a real challenge within any management of our organizations. If it provides current small bases of volume, no real meaningful profit from the investments made it can be a hard sell across the organization.

Projects that focus on the future work mostly are based on ‘best’ assumptions. Sadly it is often executives expect to see the same ‘hard’ metrics being applied as the existing business. We ignore significant differences and this is a huge mistake.

Recognizing our present day thinking are at odds with future thinking

So you get these clear sense that many are sceptical or pay lip service to the products of the future as the thinking, judgement and value orientation are at such odds with the existing measures and metrics they apply to run today’s business and how they get judged.

We must move our thinking beyond the ‘here and now’ and push it into the future if we want to transform our innovation and that takes a very different mindset and where the three horizon framework can help significantly in balancing any innovation portfolio.

There is that prevailing sense that we are just managing for ‘business as usual’, leaving many increasingly uncomfortable and feeling exposed. Why?

Our businesses are not adapting fast enough to changing conditions in the market, often lagging in the competitive race to update and keep relevant.

Businesses are struggling with conflicting knowledge flows and incoming intelligence, just simply managing their talent to keep them relevant, engaged and outwardly orientated.

They need to constantly adjust and adapt to the demands and challenges within the societal conditions, environments and markets, grappling with constant shifts in consumer demand and coping with the declining natural resources and of what all of this might mean.

We are often short on foresight and certainly struggling with growing complexity.

Bill Sharpe and Tony Hodgson, along with Andrew Curry and Graham Leicester, have been working to bring the Three Horizons framework into a more widespread use . Once I had ‘found them’ through the International Futures Forum they became the catalyst for my own perspective of exploring this framework and applying it specifically for innovation

Bill and Tony have recently provide a wonderfully descriptive view of valuing the Three Horizon Framework within a 3H slideshare deck I’d encourage you to work through. It frames and captures much that reflects the tensions and approaches to overcome these.

I’d also encourage you to go back and explore my different thoughts in this site by entering in the search box: “three horizons”. My trilogy of blogs starting with “the Value of Managing Innovation Across the Three Horizons” I’d suggest is equally not a bad place to start for a clear background to this methodology.

Reflecting on a framework to that can help frame those future discussions?

Let me reflect on some of the thinking around the 3H framework as I relate to it from my more dedicated focus, the innovation management perspective.

Why I so much like this 3H framework is in its value where you can construct distinctly different horizon focuses, based on the present, that allow a ‘growing future consciousness’

Our need is that we all must find ways to embrace the future, to not get simply caught up and washed away, because we were ‘just’ unable to move beyond the present, or simply stayed stuck in the past. I think this 3H framework is very powerful to allow us to move beyond our existing framing, to map across different horizons

Often we are caught be surprise, ignoring many warning signs

With our lack of foresight and lack of actions we lose something that begins us to ‘walk the path towards decay.’ If we ignore ‘taking action’ long enough for a host of seemingly reasonable reasons, when something occurs that simply confirms what we inwardly had felt for some time might possibly happen, it has already grown into a real problem.

By using our ability of using foresight; of seeing this possible set of events, different signals and warnings we have two choices. We could have chosen to continued to ignore it, or we start to make  ‘investments’ into building new defenses, new capabilities, new stepping-stones to the future.

There is this powerful need to look towards the future

Based on what we know today and what we can set about building and exploring does hold the exciting promise of the future. Look out of ourselves offers a more rewarding prospect.

A future held in our own hands then we can help shape it and integrate it into our daily lives or of course, we can simply ignore it and keep hunkered down in what we do, feeling we are comfortable and secure. I would argue we all need to embrace change, not avoid it, it never goes away, it is constantly tapping you on the shoulder.

We need to keep reflecting upon what is dominant, prevalent and pattern-changing, as these positions are constantly shifting. Scanning the horizons and what is simply all around ‘us’ offers those ‘pockets of the future’ to invest in, explore and experiment, to be open to change.

Initially these pockets of the future may seem a long way off, often just really weak signals, but are indicating different, perhaps far more radical and perhaps disruptive changes and our organizations need to constantly re-equip for these by building different capabilities and competencies. Technology clearly comes to mind with wave upon wave of change, crashing against the established rocks, beginning to weaken the existing structures and form new ones.

Just remember the present is already in decline

It is the constant renewing, the transforming and capturing of these weak signals, today clearly seen as marginal to our business, that can ‘permit us’ to explore and begin to re-equip ourselves for the changes that might happen. Small investments anticipating potential changes are highly valuable to consider.

We can choose to ignore these signals or poorly under fund them as they are often seemingly vague, often unrelated to our existing practices. They are unsure in what they bring, mostly experimental in the early investigations,that ‘seemingly’ conflict, even drawing resources away from our existing model but at what risk to the future?

The ongoing dilemma we need to also revolve, is around multiple cross over points, between blending the existing with these possible futures, allowing time and resources to figure out and explore the options these might present as future options to the business.

Not enough time really does constraint and dominate

We never can find enough time to manage all that we would like to. We are forced to (eventually) make many rushed choices, often ill-judged or last-minute, reacting to changes being forced on us .

Our interests, values, mindset all ‘kick in’ and when it comes to discussing the future, well often initial discussions begin to move into conflict, based on established positions, types of personality, vested interests or opinions.

Attitudes and judgement are either grounded in the present, with many executives fairly dismissive of the future, or those that are more future related become increasingly impatient in wanting to challenge and change the present.

We need to manage the tensions between the different views on managing the present and the future.

The rising way of change comes from different experiments and innovations

It is partly through the treatment of innovation, feeding into the system a rising wave of future innovations that alter positions. Staying stuck in ‘just’ incremental to serve the existing conditions in the market seriously constrains you for the future, you stop growing, exploring, being curious and experimental.

Encouraging separate and focused discussions on the future are increasingly essential

Discussions within the boardroom, within our R&D centres on the breadth and depth of the future portfolio and the allocation of resources for innovation, needs to have different mindsets within the 3H approach.

There needs to be a framework to surface different assumptions, often conflicting and entrenched views to surface the potential ‘pockets of the future’ as seen through different eyes.

If we can avoid those initial, often highly personal definitive judgements of the future, we can begin to map these conflicting thoughts back to our existing, to see different emerging patterns that meet many of these seemingly ‘conflicting voices’ and each begin to appreciate and see their role of moving the existing into these futures as they make sense to their lens or orientation.

You evaluate what initiatives are already under-way, that have a more future orientation and which seemed to be more sustaining the present. We are looking to find ways for transformational change grounded partly in the present, partly based on clear movement detected.

We are moving the ‘grounded knowledge’ and assumptions into the potentials that are thought to be emerging, we see the role of the present in the future, we can see much can be ‘let go’ and allowed to be opened up and explored differently. We are beginning to adapt to the new environment. The future might be getting clearer.

We need to take care within any future’s discussion.

The three horizon methodology and how you frame each of the dialogue sessions does need care. You are not only dealing with present complexity, but seeing future scope through emerging patterns and many weak signals; equally, we are often dealing with entrenched positions, insecurity and impatience.

It is the ability to step back, to travel in ambiguous territory, challenge the safe bet of extending the old system, to release these deep tensions these conversations will reveal.

I would encourage adopting the three horizon methodology to innovation

We need to encourage a transformation in our capacities by developing a collective awareness of our ‘future consciousness’ that opens up a greater freedom to act and move forward.

I believe the three horizon methodology becomes an essential framework within any organization wanting to determine their resources and evaluate their innovation pathways.

Exploring the field of futures and foresight as an emerging practice

In a future post I’d planning to discuss part of a book that came out in late 2013 from Bill Sharpe. His book, or actually more a booklet, is called “Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope”, published by Triarchy Press.

In this book, Bill is outlining his distinct and even highly sensitive way of creatively working through many of the unknowns, by framing and connecting though the Three Horizons, offering his contribution to the patterning of hope for all our futures.

I’d like to relate to parts of a book that came out in late 2013 from Bill Sharpe. His book, or actually more a booklet, called “Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope”, published by Triarchy Press, has some really helpful insights.

In this book, Bill outlines his distinct ways of creatively working through many of the unknowns, by framing and connecting though the Three Horizons, (3H) as his contribution to the patterning of hope for all our futures.

I draw out a lot within his thinking, experiences and approaches within the book. Some of these initial thoughts outlined here, re-affirm my own thinking and focus on the 3H, specifically for innovation and its management.

Here are some of the ‘triggers’ I connected with strongly from his book:

The three horizons does offer us much to frame the future

Firstly, the 3H is actually a simple framework, see my original opening post in 2010,on a quick explanation if you need it. The 3H allows us all to work with what we know, about today, and a method that allows us to engage creatively with what we don’t know. To look beyond the existing.

The 3H methodology enables us to look out into the future, across different horizons. It allows us to gauge  the challenges, adding aspects we are beginning to gain a sense of, transitioning from one position to another. It is one that requires us to reflect and possibly make change, then we can move forward to meet the new challenges, within this emerging vision of the possible futures.

Tackling uncertain futures for transformational change

Bill asks the question in his book “How can people work together to create transformational change in the face of the uncertain future?”

He suggests we have choices, we continue the pattern of how we have been doing things today or we start a new pattern. What can be abandoned and let go, what can be adopted as new and how do we manage the transition.

Bill’s view is that transformation change comes about when we see that the way things are getting done now has its limits; we cannot get much beyond these limits however much we try to improve the existing system and we must face the reality create to create this new pattern for the future we need.

So it becomes clear the 3H is a way of working with change

The 3H offers us a foresight and framing tool for drawing out our often conflicting discussions and views of what all this potential change might mean, from our established patterns or approaches and those that are possibly emerging.

It provides for a transitory step in its second horizon, full of the challenges of wrestling with change, letting go of the present, holding onto essential aspects for the future, embracing often totally new concepts, skills or thinking through positions. You are intentionally drawing out diversity of opinion to improve the dialogue, narrow differences through pattern recognition. It can be tough work.

As Bill states “a lot of dynamics of change come into view quite naturally, and we are lead to explore them in terms of patterns of behavior of those (involved) who are maintaining or creating them”

We can explore the  possibilities found across the three different horizons

The intent of the 3H is to offer a way to look at the process of change, to view possibilities across three different horizons, that encourages us to look and question a little deeper, we make the future more accessible and relevant to us operating in the present, for future intent and action.

It brings out all the differences, often conflicting ‘voices’ and patterns, to challenge continuity. Then we need to figure out what needs to come into ‘play’ to help us understand those future patterns through these dialogues, so we can begin to determine what resources and emphasis to we place on them.

The 3H can help tackle complex problems or from my own focus, the future intent on innovation; in its planning, resource allocations and skill gap identification to build capabilities and capacities to be ‘future’ ready. We need to map innovation across the three horizons.

The three voices that are to be hopefully found in the same room

The different voices involved can be highly engaged, as Bill suggests, you have the voice of today, more concerned with managing the existing, maximizing returns and keeping the organization going efficiently and effectively. Then you have the second voice, the voice of the entrepreneur, the one eager to experiment, try out new things, explore and extend, accepting some aspects will not work and the third voice,  of the aspirant, who is looking to build a different vision, believing in different, more pioneering ways and visualizes things in their ‘mind’s eye’, far more aspirational, that can seemingly on first ‘take’ look to be totally incompatible to the reality of today.

The ability to draw out tensions, seeing emerging patterns and growing awareness

That tension between “our present circumstances and positioning” is full of possible future consequences and those patterns and indications that are stirring the ‘future consciousness.’ For some this seems to be a little wacky, flaky, far too aspirational, surely inconceivable, incongruous and unthinkable.

The value of the 3H framing is to begin to make the connection’s, shifting individual thinking into team actions and decisions. The 3H connects the future for bringing strategy, vision and innovation into greater alignment of thinking through diverging and then converging.

Bridging often highly divergent differences that are causing a growing and deep set of tensions are in fact, in Bills words “different perspectives on the future potential of the present moment”.

We are actually facing three different perspectives; those immersed in the dominant system of the present, with those that ‘sense’ the scope for new thinking and try something different, to those in the third domain of arguing for radical change or seeing things very differently.

The question for all too answer is “how the present might play out in the future?” The job of the 3H is to raise this in all the three opening and different thinking positions, to achieve a more united ‘future consciousness’.

The Three Horizons approach works well with complex issues

The value within Bill’s book is how he describes the three horizons in his experiences often working within complex societal areas:

“It offers a way to find and shape our own intentions more clearly, as we look over the first horizon of the known, towards the second and third horizons of innovation and transformation towards the future.

It transforms the potential of the present moment by revealing each horizon as a different quality of the future in the present, reflecting how we act differently to maintain the familiar or pioneer the new”.

I have found this book offered me a fresh perspective of the power of the 3H framework.

Bill Sharpe’s book does add some fresh and helpful thinking to working with the three horizon framework. It offers real, insightful ‘nuggets’ of an experienced practitioner, working constantly in futures work, taking on problems that need fresh approaches and new concepts, rather than application of routine methods.

Finally as Bill suggests “to shift from our simple, one-dimensional view of time stretching into the future and instead adopt a three-dimensional point of view in which we become aware of each horizon as a distinct quality of relationship between the future and the present. We call the move into this multi-dimensional view, and the skill to work with it, the step into future consciousness”

Through this book Bill provides his personal perspectives that have added real value to my own focus and understandings on how to apply the 3H to innovation.

The three horizons offer us much to frame our innovating future

Following a couple of recent posts on reflecting on the three horizons methodology, firstly here and then here, I wanted to come back to where I see real value, in managing innovation into the future.

The 3H methodology enables us to look out into the future, across three different horizons that can manage the transition between short, medium and long term in our innovation activities, something often badly lacking in most organizations thinking.

It allows us to gauge  the challenges, adding aspects we are beginning to gain a sense of, transitioning from one position to another. It allows us to deepen our evaluation of the innovation portfolio of activities, resources and skill sets across different delivery frames of short, medium and longer-term.

It is one that requires us to reflect and possibly make change, then we can move forward to meet the new challenges, within this emerging vision of the possible futures.

So 3H is a way of working with change, it offers us a foresight and framing tool for drawing out our often conflicting discussions and views of what all this potential change might mean, from our established patterns or approaches and those that are possibly emerging. The 3H supports innovation’s management very well.

Accepting everything has a finite life-cycle

From my perspective we see businesses littered with not wanting to make change, rejecting the changes going on all around them. These are happening in changing technology, different business models, threats from competitors coming into the market with different and often low-cost models.

Source: Adapted from Sharpe / Hodgson

Sometimes a concept or product has ‘run its course’ is seen as yesterday solution, or industry segments separated in the past are suddenly ‘fused’ together in new ways due to new technologies, or being purposefully designed, they begin to disrupt the existing.

We can’t afford to ignore the ‘call of change’, it places our business at significant risk. Recognizing the challenges life-cycle management can bring, does need careful managing within our innovation management.

We do need to recognize changing conditions and begin to plan out our responses, both short and longer-term through a well crafted transformation road map. The 3H can underpin this.

So where are you viewing the world from?

Many of our organizations are viewing the world from where they are.This is often in the safety of their offices. They feel comfortable to stay with what they know.

They only see change when something suddenly triggers their perception and the world alters, and it then gives way to a new horizon of sight. Often these can come far too late.

What needs to challenge this place of “the world of where we are” and prompt fresh thinking so we can allow one of emerging knowledge and insight to enter into. One where perhaps we are blending our imaginations, with some envisioned destination, where change will likely alter today’s dominant position. We need to prepare for it as these insights can radically alters our present position. We become open to change, to think differently.

We need to see the clues all around us

We need to reflect and see how we can forge those new innovation patterns. A methodology that helps raises our future consciousness and moves us to building new competencies for future competitive advantage is surely valuable?

We cannot stay trapped in our offices, our constant need is to find all possible means to be fully engaged and well-connected into the changes taking place within and across the world.

Managing the present, moving towards the future

In any future thinking there are numerous uncertainties, yet we also need to address the familiar “the way we (presently) do things around here”.

We need to grapple with “how can we ‘keep the lights on” but equally move towards a different horizon without “betting the shop” and totally disrupting all we have built up? This requires even deeper thinking.

Something that requires us to re-equip, challenge existing and entrenched ways of working, bring in and fuse new skills and capabilities, push experimentation and exploration far more, tolerate failures in new ways, keep shareholders happy, recognizing the need to make change for a potential sustaining future. Possibilities of changes in our ways of working and approach begin to unlock and open up to different thinking.

The unlocking of the future is partly recognizing the future patterns, yet is is equally releasing us from the dominance of old ways of working, systems and structures – ways we have been increasingly sensing are no longer truly work well for us.

We need to shape our future intentions

It is the second horizon; you can read a further post specifically on this 2nd horizon, “entering the zone of uncertainty”  within this framework, that is the hardest one to work through.

This is the transitory horizon, balancing today’s business with the investigations and new possibilities to lead towards a future.

Our abilities to manage this transitory zone (the 2h) is vital for our innovation management, it holds the key to staying locked in the present or moving towards a sustaining future built on different views and perspectives

For me the value of the 3H is in its use within innovation’s management.

The three horizon framework offers a map of transformational potential which allows us to move towards finding new skills, degrees of new freedoms and creativity, we are striving for a balance between existing and preferred, based on present day understanding.

Scoping out the future needs for innovation to address needs different thinking. It needs foresight and exploration. It needs to allocate resources across the three different horizons and each of their respective challenges of the future needed from innovation.

This is why the 3H is, for me, a very valuable approach to managing innovation in the present and for the future.

The 3H framework prompts the need for transformational capacity.

I believe there is great value in exploring innovation possibilities through a framework that can support the often diverse management thinking, one that is far more strategic in its focus on exploring the options, working through different scenarios and mindsets, then adjusting the resources accordingly, or identifying required new ones.

A framework that ‘sketches out’ that future promise can significantly improves strategic and innovation alignment, help set organizational direction and defining and allocating resources appropriately.

It frames discussions, it is a navigational guide to allow for framing challenges and seeing perspectives in different frames, so as they can be addressed. The 3H helps scope out the pathway of change from today’s existing innovation approaches. It takes you through the key milestones to the future envisaged and allows you to distinguish different horizon challenges.

Working with the 3H approach can be a very powerful tool for managing our innovation future.

Any framework that draws out concerns, differences of opinions and prompts transformational discussions, can be a very powerful management tool. If it provides the platform for framing and recognizing what needs to change.

If it can help to begin to flesh any capability gaps, stepping-stones to cross and if it can ‘point’ toward the action and activities that need to put into place, so the organization can make their moves towards that different innovation future, then it has great value within any organization wanting to manage and structure its innovation activity.

I believe the three horizons approach can contribute significantly to this aim of managing innovation and giving organizations a sustaining future. I certainly recommend it.

Having different perspectives and voices will enhance your innovation activities, they provide diversity, stimulus and greater options for you to consider the future innovation journey. How do we set about engaging with all these different voices surrounding innovation?

Have you ever worked with the three horizon framework?

It is really useful for managing your innovation activities, drawing out the often conflicting voices within the organization on how to take innovation forward. The approach can unlock you from just being caught in the present, to one of envisaging a future that then allows you to begin to build different capabilities, competencies and capacities.

Find out more here and here and here on the three horizons or within this blog site put “three horizon approach ” into the search box. You will find  I have provided a considerable overview in different posts thoughts on the 3H thinking and why I place such value in it for innovation’s evolution.

The 3H framework offers a perspective that accepts the need to both address the multiple challenges that occur in the first horizon, foster the seeds of the third and, allocate appropriate focus and resources to manage the transitions from one to another.

What makes the model valuable to innovators is that it ‘accepts’ that competition is restless, markets are evolving, and that change is a constant. The three horizons approach offers the methodology for constructing plausible and coherent innovation activities projected out into the future. It looks for emerging winners.

The 3H not a planning tool; it is providing a valuable evolutionary perspective that dialogues can be formed around, so decisions on where to focus and what resources to apply can be based on a more plausible and coherent set of activities projected into the future, searching for emerging winners, those that can potentially change and challenge your existing business but evolve it in clear ways. The 3H is a dialogue mechanism to help frame the evolving journey and allow you to move towards it in a better structured way.

The need is to discuss the challenges in horizon one and nurture the seeds of the third. It is not an either/or, good/bad discussion. You need those robust discussions to form fresh perspectives. The key is in listening out and becoming adept at managing these conversations between the ‘voices’ of the three horizons.

The three voices that need to be in the same room

• You have the voice of today, the voice of the manager(s) responsible for delivering todays result that are more concerned with managing the existing, maximizing returns and keeping the organization going efficiently and effectively.

• Then you have the second voice, the voice of the entrepreneur, the one eager to experiment, try out new things, explore and extend, accepting some aspects will not work

• Last we have the third voice, the voice of the aspirant, who is looking to build a different vision, believing in different, more pioneering ways and visualize things in their ‘mind’s eye’, far more aspirational, that can seemingly on first ‘take’ look to be totally incompatible to the reality of today.

The different voices involved can be highly engaged, all wanting to add their perspective, you need to listen to them. You need to search for common ground, growing recognition and sometimes realization, that these are not so much separate voices, but actually ones that can all be combined, to provide a far greater outcome when they can ‘see the same future’ but through their own specific voice.

It is the combination of these different three voices that need to come together and help frame the innovation journey. It is by applying and using the three horizons framework and its methodology you can draw out and advance better outcomes for your future innovation activity.

There is this powerful need to look towards the future

Based on what we know today and what we can set about building and exploring, does hold the exciting promise of the future. Look out of ourselves offers a more rewarding prospect. Valuing the often conflicting voices around us or even seeking them out provides for richer promise.

We need to keep reflecting upon what is dominant, prevalent and seems to be pattern-changing, as these positions are constantly shifting. Scanning the horizons and what is simply all around ‘us’ offers those ‘pockets of the future’ to invest in, explore and experiment, to be open to change, to shape and prepare for, to become far more “future ready”.

Initially these pockets of the future may seem a long way off, often just really weak signals, but are indicating different, perhaps far more radical and perhaps disruptive changes for our organizations to re-equip for. The earlier yon can spot and organize for changes ahead the greater the chances of building the different capabilities and competencies these are more likely to need.

Technology clearly comes to mind with wave upon wave of change is crashing against the established rocks, beginning to weaken the existing structures and form new ones. Innovation gains from this constant flow, if you are ready to receive it.

Change does come from different experiments and explorations

It is partly through the treatment of innovation, feeding into the system a rising wave of future innovations that alter positions. Staying stuck in ‘just’ incremental to serve the existing conditions in the market seriously constrains you for the future, you stop growing, exploring, being curious and experimental.

You need to encourage experimentation, testing, prototyping, accelerating the learning and then being ready to scale what holds promise and abandon what seems not too. For this you need all the voices within your organization seeing the future, so they can consciously work towards it, even when it might seem vague and not fully clear. The 3H framework draws out discussions, it helps project into the future.

Just always remember, the present is already in decline. Look out, do not stay locked in. Entrenchment limits your options to break out, as much as you might feel it needs defending, as its providing your present day core.

We often constrain our innovation because we ‘shoe horn’ any conceptual thinking into a given time, usually the yearly budgetary plan, so it dominates the actions decided and can exercise a large influence in this constraining of ideas to realization.

We should make the case that different types of innovation operate and evolve over different time horizons and need thinking through differently.

We have three emerging horizons that need different treatment for innovation.

1. Those innovations meeting given goals that support today’s business– these should be within specified period covered by a yearly plan and cover mostly incremental innovation. They provide the source of energy to feed the future, they form our present core but are more than likely already in some form of decline, however you prop them up.

2. Objectives that are more disruptive in nature – these are often attained later, after a lot of experimenting until a clear approach emerges. These need to be progressed within the period but have a likely longer horizon, in this case our horizon two within the three horizon framework but usually more than one planning cycle of 12 months. Sometimes they can take two to three years to emerge.

3. Ideals that offer Future Radical Promise– unattainable within the usual time period, longer term, but the progress is certainly possible during and after the period planned as they move from a ‘weak signal’, detected today by probing and investigating over an extended period of time. Some of these emerge as the business of the future from exploring, experimenting and building understanding.

We should see these as entirely different in the need to manage and judge

Breaking down all of innovation into milestone achievements firstly, so time gets signaled and clarified early, the efforts ahead and resources need get ‘fleshed out’ so then we can think to apply this into a fit with our more traditional planning cycles. This will allow us to determine the commitments and resources and help qualify the returns to structure these accordingly. As we determine the portfolio of innovations we then need to apply entirely different measurement and performance criteria for each time and thinking horizon.

Our existing planning does needs to account for all three horizons, they cannot be simply fitted into one set of plans, all having clear metrics and financials. In many cases it simply ignores the differences completely and forces short cuts, dilution of a great, potentially radical idea , so it becomes ‘boiled down’ into a series of part disrupting but more often incremental innovations that fails to deliver the greatest impact that a different time and thinking approach can achieve..

Often the time horizon of possible desired innovation often has these real conflicts. The actual realities and needs of the organization, especially in the short-term, we lower the innovation impact in final delivery. We fall back on incremental solutions as the organization does not have the patience, appetite or desire to see through the potential fully.

Thinking differently requires different mind-sets.

It is such a pity the different time horizons for different types of innovation are not simply treated differently in most organizations thinking and planning. We need to ‘account’ for innovation differently.

We need to think our numbers, activities and planning differently for innovation, pure and simple. We need to ‘project’ innovation across different horizons, each with its own distinct goals, objectives, often dedicated resources and investment criteria.

Otherwise you end up with innovations that are simply incremental that competitors can easily copy, and quickly. We fall into the trap of chasing each other to the point of ever-increasing commoditization, known as the race to the bottom, as you failed to invest sufficient time in building the new capacities for the future business to climb above this and put profitable distance between you and others.

Clarifying the innovation purpose and recognizing distinct differences.

Any coherency of innovations purpose, of what you want to achieve, and then set about this by simply applying this in a rigid accountancy planned way does not work. Unless you treat all the different aspects of innovation differently in planning cycles and recognize these are needed to be managed in clearly different horizons that have different criteria, you will fail.

Innovation operates through a different set of behaviors and also in its delivery commitment and purpose from ‘business as usual’; it is searching for “business not so usual’. This requires different mind-sets at the C-level and throughout the organization to explore and develop.

The need is to constantly manage different expectations of when, where and why the potential value being extracted is worth pursuing and be patient in working towards goals that strengthen over time for achieving a far greater impact and return on investment.

Breakthroughs happen but usually with a lot of hard work and dedicated sense of commitment, even when you have set backs but you need to forge this different mentality that broader innovation needs to be treated differently and where it fits within the horizon framing.

Forming a common view of the Three Horizon for Innovation

As you may know I have been writing significantly around the Three Horizons in relationship to innovation.

Initially drawing on the foundation within the McKinsey initial papers, updated here under their enduring ideas, and in particular based on by its original authors of the book “The Alchemy of Growth” by Mehrdad Baghai, Steve Coley, David White and Stephen Coley

Then I discovered the work of the International Futures Forum, based in Scotland, where a group of members have extended the 3H significantly, well beyond McK’s initial work from my perspective, into a broader, more robust methodology tackling complex problems.

It was this IFF work that excited me, it opened up my thinking to find better ways to deepen the innovation connections and framing that could be suggested in the use of this three horizon frame in exploring and expanding different techniques and approaches.

Connecting the innovation thinking dots

I realized the significant role the three horizon framework could have within our innovation thinking that was still missing and decided to take this further, beyond the original authors view. I have written about this since my first post “The three horizon approach to innovation” “in September 2010, after some initial prompting from Tim Kastelle who shares in its value and place in our innovation thinking.

Here I want to provide a common language and approach to the three horizons

I have continued to build my understanding in practice and in my research on the 3H and have published this thinking through a series of articles and posts found as a collection in my insights and thinking page, that focus specifically on relating the 3H to the innovation space for dialogues, planning, portfolio debates, differentiating the distinctions between the three and generally arguing for its value in the management of innovation.

This intent has been to grow awareness and offer a better understanding of how it works, fits and has this great value for innovation’s management that should be within all organizations thinking around working through its innovation ambitions for the future and relating these to the reality of the present.

Go to the “search” on this site and enter “three horizons” you can view the different articles I’ve published on this, or equally you can download these as summary series within my “insights and thinking” page under the three horizons. They do provide a detailed build on this frame.

Understanding the way to approach each of the horizons

I published in August 2011 a suggested “emerging framework to help navigate across the three horizons” in a further blog which provides a clarity of how to structure, frame and think in these different horizons. This is how:

Navigation across the Three Horizons Framework

Pushing this thinking further I felt we needed a common metrics of understanding

Recently I have taken this further and felt there was a need to provide a common language and application for approaching the three horizons. We need to look beyond where we stand

 This common metrics of understanding I’m publishing for the first time here

I believe this can be adopted as a suggested approach to thinking about each horizon separately, covering this from the many different perspectives. I hope this provides for an even greater adoption into the innovation thinking we all need to have in our planning, discussions and management of innovation.

Three Horizon Common Language Taxonomy 1

Three Horizon Common Language Taxonomy 2

So each Horizon needs a different focus, a different management approach, different goals and different thinking.

If you would like a copy of this as a pdf or download Three Horizon Common Language Table

It would be great if these were further built upon and accepted, it would help in our management of innovation.

The Value of the Three Horizons of Seeing Beyond

Following on from my suggested Common Language approach to the Three Horizons, I would like to outline here its significant value, within any innovation management thinking.

Clarifying our options requires multiple thinking horizons – seeing beyond for all possibilities by listening to the different voices

For me, the three horizons have great value to bring together and  map all the different thinking and possible innovation options over changing horizons.

You can frame innovation in alternative ways by using this approach. Innovation has multiple evolution points and working with this framework allows you to significantly improve all of your innovation contributions.

It goes well beyond the present value of ‘just’ fitting your existing innovation portfolio and directional management into a typical one dimensional view of just working in the present.

By separating your thinking, appreciating that different voices are competing for attention provides a higher diversity of opinion, different perspectives for improving innovation’s eventual value. Those different voices involved can be highly engaged, all wanting to add their perspective:

• You have the voice of today operating in horizon one exploiting the core, the incumbent business. The manager(s) responsible are protecting, leveraging and delivering today’s result, very much focused on the operational and result orientated issues. Fully concerned with managing the existing business, maximizing returns and keeping the organization going efficiently and effectively, delivering on the needs of the short-term.

• Then you have the second voice, the voice of the entrepreneur, those more pushing into horizon two, the ones eager to experiment, to try out new things. They are wanting to push further, to explore and extend, accepting some aspects will not work but keen to investigate, search, experiment and learn from these discoveries. They are experimenting within the current business model but also wanting to push the boundaries to explore alternatives that might have a disruptive or radical aspect where they can begin to equip themselves to understand

• Last we have the third voice, the voice of the aspirant, who is looking to build a different vision, they operate mostly in horizon three, believing in different, more pioneering, perhaps radical solutions that seeks to visualize things in their ‘mind’s eye’. They are far more aspirational. They are looking to explore concepts that often can seemingly look on first ‘sight’ to be totally incompatible to the reality of today, even they can potentially challenge today’s existing core, perhaps cannibalize it or radically alter its very nature. Those operating within this horizon three are often picking up on ‘weak signals’ that are out there that signify a changing future that might impact their own and set about capturing all that can make this a significant game changer.

It is the combination of these different three voices that need to come together and frame the innovation journey by using the three horizons framework.

Establishing a common understanding of operating in each horizon becomes critical

Innovation is constantly facing disruption; it is constantly going through life cycles and new waves of different activities. We need a far more robust, well thought-through way to apply our innovation resources to meet and anticipate these changing events and for this I always recommend the three horizons.

With the effective use of the three horizons you can see opportunities completely differently beyond the existing mindset and activities, it takes innovation from tactical to strategic, to foresight in your evaluations.

We need common ways to build a language around innovation and its management.

We need common ways to build a language around innovation and its management. As the three horizons can help frame the allocation of resources, determine the innovation road map and contribute to structuring the portfolio into its different parts, it can be essential to this building a common understanding and recognition of its organizing value

Appreciating its evolving value

If you can appreciate the value of the 3H frame in its potential, firstly to aid the mapping out of the present and the challenges the business can find itself in, it gives a common position for all to work through, to find common ground and focus on delivering on the understanding collectively.

The three horizons can help you move towards articulating the road map to the future and provide the encouragement to turn this into the ‘what, when, how and why’ that future innovation always needs figuring out the sorting of the essentials to ‘fuel it’.

It can assist in the evidence-based gathering to exploit (h1), extend or expand (h2) and to explore(h3) how the existing core will grow and be seeded or orientated in future ways. It can be a significant contributor to providing the vision, values and beliefs that an organization can orient towards and work towards.

It can help us break out of existing mindset traps through its evolutionary steps to clarify, explore and identify all the different voices and then explain the “how and where we move towards as our innovating future”.

The 3H is a frame that I genuinely believe is an essential management method for innovation’s good management practice.

In Summary of its innovating value to you and your organization

I believe the 3H framing technique that can structure the evolution of the innovation needed within organizations.

It can be based on existing evidence or as we learn, building evidence-based change, so we can use its framing to adjust to new information and knowledge or be adjusted as the changes occurring, that happen in the years ahead, as the organizations moves towards their innovating future. It can offer a solid structure to the (strategic) decisions that then have to be made.

Why can’t it additionally become an essential visualizing tool, no different from where the Business Model Canvas has established itself?

It is a frame that should be an essential management method or framing technique that can structure the evolution of the innovation needed, based on existing evidence or as we learn. We use its framing to adjust to new learning or as changes are occurring in the years ahead and the 3H does give a very essential part of the narrative of innovation, something we often lack.

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Go to the “search” on this site and enter “three horizons” you can view the different articles I’ve published on this, or equally you can download these within different summary series, within my “insights and thinking” page, under the three horizons. They do offer a detailed build on this framework to bring it all together.

Often we forget to frame what we want to really achieve in our innovation activity, instead we simply dive in and start innovating. I believe until we know what solutions we feel we need or the market wants, we will more often than not, end up disappointed in our innovation solutions.

In recent years our innovation understanding and its management have significantly changed, due to numerous factors that have been happening. These have been advances in technology, methodology or design- thinking and we do need to stop and think about how we could do ‘things’ differently by asking “what is possible?” This should be asked not just on each occasion of an innovation concept design but within the total innovation system we are presently operating under.

Perhaps by asking three critical questions on “what is possible?”  we might produce better innovation answers (and solutions) than in simply not bothering to, at least, scope out the real possibilities, where we can miss so much.

The aim of asking is to reduce the constraints, free up resources, leverage the techniques available, and equally, push the boundaries of your thinking to want to generate “great” innovation, not just the mediocre, incremental stuff, so often produced and labelled “innovative” that we end up doing.

We often fail to ask three critical questions before we embark on innovation. They may not eventually fit or work together but they do enable you to see what is possible, what is desirable and what is then that certain dose of business reality we all need to work through. Asking these questions offsets that attitude of simply accepting the established approach from the very beginning..Speed, scale and agility are required and many of our existing innovation practices do not adapt to these increasing demands.

Lets take a look at each of these three questions above.

What are we capable of?

With the incredible array of frameworks, solutions, technical applications and design options, we are becoming far more capable to innovate than ever before. How we engineer and design our solutions will determine much of the ‘ability to innovate’. We are very capable to push our design thinking and quickly turn our conceptual blueprints into a reality, through the smart use of cloud technology alongside being selective in the enterprise software we need, and ensuring we have an innovation backbone of a clear process that can be adapted constantly to the ‘needs’ we require to achieve the best result.

Today nothing has to be rigid or protected, we have to encourage and find a certain freedom to adapt, adjust, pilot and experiment within our innovation ‘system’ as the very solutions we desire are in constant in need of adaption from fresh learning.

The ability to utilize the cloud, use the increasing range of rapid software prototyping, agile principles, and full stack, cloud based platforms we are getting closer to game-changing business technology solutions you are able to develop, build, test and iterate a solution.

For example IBM’s Bluemix provides the ideal DevOps environment (great link BTW) for rapid prototyping, then building, scaling and integrating apps. Bluemix lifts you out of the past practices of working through rather rigid Enterprise solutions and protocols, it rapidly speeds up your innovation search and discover, validate and learn environment and can also scale and integrate.

So we should be asking of ourselves “what are we capable of?” To stay incumbered with a rigid system is simply denying yourself all the possibilities that can be achieved by having a highly adaptive and flexible innovation system. The innovation concepts you work upon are constantly evolving, then so should the systems that support it and this needs a far more ‘hybrid’ approach than ever before.

What is desirable?

“If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it’s OK. But you’ve got to shoot for something. A lot of people don’t even shoot.” – Confucius

So do we ever ask ourselves what is truly desirable? So often we just accept compromise is inevitable and start with that position from the very beginning. I would argue strongly we don’t accept that. If we do we fail to ever achieve innovation that is truly a ‘breakthrough’ or ‘disruptive’.

We should have aspirations, as humans we need these. Innovation is no different. When we see a ‘real need’. either from the feed back from clients or spotted by ourselves in the market place or simply conceived in  your ‘minds eye’ we must fight to hold this in any innovation discussions that subsequently take place. Being dogmatic is not the answer but bringing others to ‘seeing the same potential solution’ allows for advancing the initial idea into perhaps, an even greater solution

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

Normal Vincent Peale

I know, I’m offering a lot of moon and stars here but it is far better to open up our thinking, lift up our heads, out of immediate solutions and see the possibilities that can become more within our realm of possibility. To really spend some time on the desirable, that aspirational place is where innovation becomes great. I think we should always seek out this desirable point, scope it and shoot for the potential it can offer. We as humans need to work on the aspirational aspects, besides maintaining the existing, it gives us a greater sense of identity, hope and fulfillment.

For instance the human centered design kit offered by Ideo although written principally for the social sector, is  a full-color, 192-page book, the Field Guide that comes with 57 design methods, the key mindsets that underpin how and why IDEO.org believes design can change lives. The concept of human-centered design sets out a counterbalance which puts the human and social imperatives first and foremost. It can help drive a customer focus deep within a corporation and make this focus the heart of value creation.

What is viable?

This is the tough ground to travel through and over. Each business has a need, to grow, to add value, to beat or at least equal competition, or should do. This tough part is we are never starting as equals. Some have ‘abundance’, others have a ‘scarcity’ of resources, of ideas, of seemingly building innovation capabilities that ‘deliver’. We are often required to find (and fight) for the optimal ground for much of what we do and often end up with the imperfect solution from the compromises we have to make.

Innovation is imperfect, we start with certain ideas or concepts and these over time and discussion seem to change shape, sometimes way beyond their original  simplicity or need. We do like to overly complicate. The larger the organization, the more we have to seek out, exchange, find solutions in a very imperfect environment. We hit that ‘certain reality’.

There is a real hope this tough terrain can be traversed differently than in the past.

In the Lean Methodology we are discovering the MVP (minimum viable product) as the process to travel through as we “Build- Measure- Learn” as the feedback loop. The quicker we enter the build stage, designed with the minimum amount of effort and least amount of time, this approach allows us to build prototypes, quickly test them, gauge and learn from them, we can then hopefully pivot into something better. The closer to the needs of the market or client the greater chance of innovation success. We are then moving back towards the desirable to then push harder for our ‘engineered’ solution.

There is equally a growing push to take the principles of minimum viable product (MVP) to a higher level, taking transformational ideas through the same core principles for minimum viable transformation (MVT) of validated learning, rapid prototyping, frugal creativity enabling often the business model to be equally redesigned. The combined thinking of Eric Ries and his “Lean Start up thinking” and Deliottes “Minimum Viable Transformation” is giving us increasing scope to hypothesize, test, learn, adjust and transform.

So our “what is possible” becomes even more aligned

By asking ourselves “what are we capable of?“, alongside “what is desirable?” with the “what is viable” through this MVP / MVT approach I believe the business need have far greater chance of alignment far more with all the potential innovation available.

The “what is viable” becomes richer, more engaging and closer to the two other parts of a solution needed for greater innovation delivery. One where we are capable of designing and engineering far more so as to deliver and have a more desirable end.

By taking the rapid changes occurring in technology (cloud, agile) and design thinking and leveraging the human design and customer need we are bringing a changing business environment of rapid iteration, experiment and prototyping into the very core of our innovation thinking.

These examples are changes where we can be exploiting far more the changing business condition, so as to respond and deliver in better flexible innovating environments. An end so much closer to client and market needs and that leads to a greater potential for growth, surely?

In the past few days, I have had some exchanges on twitter with Jairo H Venegas and Ralph-Christian Ohr on different thinking around the three horizon methodology. We share similar views on its value and partly how it can be applied.

Ralph and I exchange constantly and occasionally meet up together. Actually, we need another meeting Ralph to catch up and explore these mutual innovation value points.

Ralph in a reply to Jairo suggested this: “That’s why a portfolio approach is so important” – with his take here: bit.ly/1Rn5Svq  under his excellent Model for Integrative Innovation article.He ‘talks’ of cornerstones and offers different premises to anchor these a little more.

The different premise:  premise 1: Innovation management follows a balanced portfolio approach. The entire innovation portfolio is divided into exploitation-oriented and exploration-oriented innovation initiatives and premise 2: Senior management is committed to attributing equal importance to exploitation and exploration initiatives as both are vital for a company to thrive sustainably. Then premise 3: Exploitation- and exploration-oriented initiatives are separated in terms of organisational anchoring, governance and funding and finally premise 4: Fostering an innovation portfolio is enabled by a proper idea management system which allows to either assign an internal or external idea to the corresponding units or to reject it. Then he suggests the use of the three horizons as distinct playgrounds for innovation initiatives.

This brief summary does not do justice to Ralph’s thoughtful build up to this portfolio approach and use the three horizons as a framing for this.I do recommend reading this. The link again is here: bit.ly/1Rn5Svq 

Well Ralph’s article leads nicely into this visual I have used and I wanted to contribute further to this collective thinking around different approaches to planning out innovation and in particular in this brief exchange, we were recently having on twitter by giving it a little more context this through this visualisation.

This visual might help make a further contribution to the value and use of the three horizon methodology

The original source of this visual was by Doug Collins in 2011, adapted here. The article written at the time was linking Everitt Rogers work with the original concept creation of the 3H by Baghai, Coley & White. His article : “Moving from the Front to the Back End of Innovation: Idea Evaluation.” http://goo.gl/daS7dd

I like this visual as it places the portfolio discussion into its degree of difficulty parts to build a portfolio up without assigning it to time at this stage. That comes next through the use of the three horizons where you are exploiting and exploring these opportunities over time.

Changing the annual plan thinking is critical to building a robust innovation portfolio.

The usual arguments of how do you fit these into an annual plan tend to reduce, you are focusing on the attractiveness of different opportunities and time becomes not the issue at this point, that can come back into the thinking later. As you evaluate the degree of difficulty you start assigning different resources and recognising a ‘span’ of different times to bring these idea concepts to realisation.

You will notice in the middle of this visual there is a key transforming point.

I believe if you are genuinely looking across different options and broader opportunities you can begin to see a transforming opportunity that has the potential to radically alter or drive your business in the future.

This sits in the middle as it becomes an emerging idea, that goes into the horizon two part. This needs really carefully handling and I have previously written about this horizon two specifically in an article here called Traversing across into horizon 2 for new breaking innovation.

Also, I would want you to go back and read two articles, firstly on why innovation needs a different time and thinking horizons and then drawing out the different voices within the three horizons methodology for innovation. That way I don’t need to repeat parts of them here.

Recognising our present day thinking are at odds with future thinking

So you get these clear sense that many are sceptical or pay lip service to the products or service offerings of the future as the thinking, judgement and value orientation are at such odds with the existing measures and metrics they apply to run today’s business and how they get judged.

We must move our thinking beyond the ‘here and now’ and push it into the future if we want to transform our innovation and that takes a very different mindset and where the three horizon framework can help significantly in balancing any innovation portfolio.

So to add to the short exchange on twitter I thought I’d share this visual that might help in plotting your balanced portfolio in a way that combines portfolio management and three horizon thinking for recognising time and allocating resource

The potential of using the three horizons to any blue sky thinking, or determine what makes up the portfolio, is a more classic positioning but why not, once you have determined your opportunities in the portfolio you place them back into the three horizons to manage them ‘going forward’.

Just an additional thought or two as you finish up here.

By the way in my insights and thinking tag on this site you have an extensive collection of thoughts around the three horizon methodology, including white papers and different ‘series’ collections to give you a fairly comprehensive view of this most valuable 3H methodology.

End note: Doug Collins has pointed out since this publication, that he was original source of this visual. I had lost this reference and I am happy to add it in. His original article adds well to this.

Within our ‘business as usual’ attitudes, there actually lies the seeds of destruction. Today there is a relentless pace; we are facing stagnation in many maturing markets if we don’t evolve.

Yet we actually subvert the future to prolong the life of the existing. We need to frame our innovation needs differently for exploring and exploiting innovation across different time horizons to move beyond the usual.

Commonality within innovation is becoming increasingly important. We need to build clear common languages of innovation, frameworks, methods and approaches.

There is a pressing need to frame innovation in different ways, to meet change that lies in the future. We are in need to clarify our options and this requires multiple thinking horizons to work through to deliver a richer tapestry of innovation discovery.

Innovation is constantly facing disruption; it is constantly going through life cycles and new waves of different activities and we begin decay faster today than ever. We run an increasing risk that we begin to lose any dominance or competitive position increasingly. We need to innovate to sustain ourselves and maintain our market positions in a rapidly evolving world.

The key requires us to manage this transition, not let others manage it for us. We need a far more robust, well thought-through way to apply our innovation resources to meet and anticipate these changing events. It is how we manage this transition becomes so critical.

The three horizon framework needs to become the innovation space for dialogues, planning, portfolio debates, differentiating the distinctions between the three time line perspectives and generally arguing for inclusion, the value and importance of the thinking and then applying the appropriate resources needed in the management of innovation across these three different timelines.The 3H framework is a powerful enabler.

The value of the weak signals needs amplifying

We need to exploit developing trends that are emerging in the different but future horizons and begin to tune in and discover the emerging possible options in the future.

The discussions in any forecasting or futuristic planning often have conflicting views of the future, compared to the existing realities based on those products and services that are providing the returns for today’s business. Yet the future is also equally rooted in the present, often called ‘weak signals’

I am a great follower of Dave Snowden’s thinking and work over at www.cognitive-edge.com on “making sense of complexity in order to act” which includes SenseMaker® and the Cynefin Framework, which I have written upon in its value, in this post “use of the Cynefin model for innovation” ,and within his work equally are clear views of managing change.

Dave Snowden’s has a view that works for me in applying the thinking around the three horizons, this fits so well. He argues instead of trying to tackle the unknowable, as it is inherently unknowable, he rightly suggests 1) we fully explore the evolutionary potential of the present, 2) bring in as wide an engagement of views to find a more sustainable or resilient set of solutions to emerge and 3) in his view, and most probably the most important point, it is how you build the narrative and descriptors, as the danger becomes the more you attempt to predict and evaluate, the more you can close down options, some far too early.

He suggests the more you can hold onto this descriptive level, the longer you have in widening the range of intervention points as more knowledge becomes available. You spend less time on (predicting) outcomes and more time on measuring vectors (velocity, acceleration, magnitude, force of direction) which for me, allows the progressive build of the right future capabilities, in more evolving and evolutionary ways of learning from exploring and experimenting, the key transition point of Horizon 2 (h2).

Resisting the early decision.

It is often the cases we can detect change but we consciously ignore it or dismiss it out of hand. This is often the place where the disruptor is presently at work, both existing or new competitors, exploring or exploiting different options, working at displacing your products and market positions. The combinations of new technologies, concepts and business models are constantly emerging and we need to be pioneers these as well as detect them as they emerge, anticipating the change these might bring and focus on building the capacity and capabilities to advance on your own curve of understanding.

We need to separate and structure different mindsets to developing innovation capabilities to explore and prepare for the future, as well as deepen the exploration, to leverage the present. Structuring the approach, by looking across multiple horizons, allow you to evolve the entire innovation portfolio and begin to recognise the many gaps that exist within your thinking, within your capabilities and capacities to innovate.

Separating the horizon lenses

By looking at this through separate horizon lenses does equally assist you in allocating the appropriate but usually different resources that are needed to be applied, to each of the time horizons and challenges that are identified and lie within them.

The three horizon framework has the clear intent to grow awareness and offer a better understanding of how innovation works and fits, with also its great value for clarifying the structuring and allocation of innovation’s management. It can be used for portfolio alignment, resource structuring and the mechanism for broad dialogue of explaining decisions and describing the growing consensus of the future direction.

The three horizon framework  can offer a vital part within all the organisations thinking around working through its innovation ambitions, not just for the present but for the future and how these can transition, connecting the reality of the present with the concepts of the future.

The need is we all should make the case that different types of innovation operate and evolve over different time horizons and need thinking through differently.

The three horizon framework  goes well beyond simply a planning tool, it does provide a valuable evolutionary perspective that dialogues can be formed around, so decisions on where to focus and what resources need to be applied can be made for delivering a constantly evolving ‘state’ of innovation development. Dialogues that deliver that then get translated into more plausible and coherent set of activities, projected into the future, searching for emerging winners that can change and challenge your existing business.

The three horizon framework is about having strategic conversations about the future, that feeds the discussions about your innovation direction, shaping the longer-term portfolio and capability understandings. It is increasingly vital to understand all of its ways to contribute to your innovation developments and needs.

Its value – if well-managed – can offer a helpful way for a significant series of dialogues and tensions to surface, but through this engagement and respect for different positions, you can find mutual ways of connecting your innovation activities and resolve these different opinions, emerging over the different horizons and diverse thinking. You are managing uncertainty in better ways, as a team or organisation through this framing dialogue.

If you would like to explore all the different ways that give the three horizons framework a much richer return in its value and use, then let me know.

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Presently the three horizon model is argued as no longer applying to innovation as it has been suggested, or I feel so, in a recent article written by Steve Blank.

Now I am a terrific admirer of Steve and his thinking but he does, I feel, rush to an assumption to fit one specific problem area, most coming from the start-up world. I apply the three horizons from the more mature organizations perspective and in a much wider lens framing approach than clear he does.

Steve Blank, no less, wrote about the problems with applying the three horizons as his view recently. You can read it here. He changed the title from “the fatal flaw of the three horizon model” to “fast time in three horizon high” mainly due to the push back he received from one of the original creators of this framework. It got even further dampened down into a more observational under “McKinsey’s Three horizons Model defined Innovation for years. Here is Why It No Longer Applies” in a Harvard Business Review posting that digs him further into his specific business focus corner that little bit deeper, as his title assumes.

Steve, I have news for you, the three horizons frame is healthy and fit for use, maybe not in your specific application (although I know it can be) but in multiple applications. I am not sure he decided why he became so dismissive on the 3H. “Fatal flaw, fit for use” can confuse a wider audience, many living off his pronouncements, when the value of this 3H frame is even more compelling today than when it was first proposed. It has moved on, not regressed.

Actually, he is wrong again on that initial innovation positioning for the 3H. It was proposed by McKinsey for a growth strategy framework and then others then took its framing principles and applied them differently. The 3H can lend itself to innovation application in multiple ways really well. Not sure the changes in titles conveys his message better than his provocative one of “fatal flaw”, which has been challenged already, with due “diffidence”. The “fatal flaw” might be in his rigid application and not in the many ways you can apply the Three Horizons potential across a broad range of framing techniques.

Steve is absolutely right, speed has made such a difference for every organization to quicken their pace. Each of the horizons has for some come closer together, or as I recommend, need all working in parallel, not one following the other

Actually, I value the three horizons in analyzing a business, its position today and its stated position tomorrow and look for gaps or opportunities to work on the different horizons needs of supporting the present, building capabilities in the near term and exploring the future in imaginative ways. One of the outcomes is more than likely, in most cases, mean adding new competencies, capabilities, and capacity.

Also, the three horizons is a good dialoguing frame to allow each of the voices within an organization to have their opinion “aired” and then the combined voices determine the path forward. I’ve written on that here in a post “Drawing out the different voices within the three horizon methodology for Innovation” and here. “Are you engaging with all the different voices around you?

I also offered up a different perspective on using the Three Horizons as a Wire Frame” Applying the Three Horizon Thinking to a Fresh Perspective of Innovation Design”

Then I looked at how to manage our assets “The New Game Or Is It? Asset Orchestration” talking about modes of commitment to innovation as first suggested by Javier Busquets.

I can go on and on about the potential versatility of the three horizons, just put into search on this posting site “three horizons” you can view the different articles I’ve published on this, or equally you can download these within different summary series, within my “insights and thinking” page, under the three horizons. They do offer a detailed build on this framework to bring it all together.

Then to finish here in my push back to Steve and his (restricted) view of the three horizons, in one of my posts “The Compelling Value of the 3H for Innovation Management“

He can perhaps open up his thinking a little more on the 3H and its value?

I still think he fails to see this beyond his “relative delivery time” applied to each horizon. He is absolutely right that horizon three deliverables have sped up but I still believe he thinks outside big organizations (thankfully to get alternative thinking) and inside these, the three horizon framework is a great (initial) organizer, to break down the complexity of thinking, if you apply it with some different imaginative thinking.

It gives a portfolio thinking for setting different priories, revealing needs, and expertise to give the renewed intensity of purpose towards each horizon. It breaks down complexity and gives the actually greater intensity of purpose.

The three horizons can be in need updating from its original purpose but if you apply one definition you can miss the real power of its value, I see multiple applications.

I think Steve does a good job of challenging some of the shifts we are undergoing in thinking differently.

Sometimes he does like to sensationalize this but that is partly why he stands out in challenging much. He makes us sit up and listen. His lens, coming from the startup environment challenges many existing ones of the incumbent.  I am always really pleased to see it through his highly “entrepreneurial eyes”.

Today if you apply the three horizons as originally intended it certainly does not solve his basic argument of a speed of deployment and asymmetry but it gets the conversation framed in larger organizations in many imaginative ways if you are prepared to step outside the three horizons original constructs thinking.

Applying the three horizons to breaking down complexity in how we organize and manage and why it needs to be seen in different frames does not go away. It does a great initial job of recognition and allocation, to tackle different challenges of managing change in different ways.

Perhaps Steve is applying his own thinking too rigidly to the three horizons, he might want to open it up in its rich potential of the application. Sometimes leaders might miss the memo as he suggests but also those writing the memo miss important points to restrict and not open us up to alternatives.

Yet as we see business as ones framed in threats, disruption concerns, ways to deploy resources, allow a focus on where to place “thin” resources, apply different techniques for prototyping, minimum viable products, tackling legacy etc there is an amazing richness within this three horizon framework. They are under appreciated.

One day I want to find the opportunity to dig around the greater value than looking through his prism of the “start-up is eating the established business world”. He is totally right that incumbents are facing more challenges from new competitors that make the incumbents business model quicker to becoming obsolete.

If you apply time to the three horizons model you do get what he states but if you take the assigned horizon work and apply the principles of simultaneous working them, you get a level of clarity that most new entrants can never comprehend, as they often do not have the level of insights that the incumbent does.

We need to apply the concept of the three horizons in greater ways for the incumbent, not just as he suggests, through one lens that he seems constrained in this limited application.

The majority of my recent work has been in investigating and building a comprehensive understanding of the #energytransition.

It is, to say at the very least, complex and challenging, but for me, satisfying and rewarding. Let me briefly explain how I am going about this and why. Why am I seeing the energy transition in different horizons and innovative ways?

My research ‘intensity’ (If I can call it that) had to become well structured, and I turned to some of my favorite, perhaps old fashion tools to capture my learning and give me my points of reference.

Included in this structured approach is different tools to capture and translate my progress. I have been building out extensive energy mind maps, constructing a dedicated posting site set up under “innovating4energy- a transition in all our lives” to ‘reflect’ some of my learnings and then to test that translation of my thinking, hopefully for others to relate too. Then building up the content within Microsoft’s One Note. Finally, lots and lots of saved files in an extensive folder on “the energy transition”.

The Energy Transition and building the new Smarter Infrastructure and Systems is a fascinating area within my present focus and future work. Here is why and how I am going about it:

The majority of my referencing has been building through dynamically expanding my Microsoft One Note structures.

I find One Note as flexible and offers the easy chance to change and shift around files as subjects and references built out, new links formed.

The One Notes are broken into Smart Infrastructure, and the whole Energy Transition system with the specific building of my research and knowledge understanding of Power Generation and their Sources, Transmission, and Consumption /User-end related.

AOD referenced here related to building up a growing atlas of Digitalization and what this means for stories and narratives. Each research area continues to be broken out into specific areas of interest or ‘housed’ in general reference files that cover off principal points of reference. Innovation within the Energy Transition continues to be “carved out” for faster referencing and relating.

My stated positioning and points of value in focusing on the Energy Transition

For me, the Energy Transition is one of the most exciting and challenging needs of the day. There is the urgent need for us all to identify and make the changes needed to deliver a better, cleaner world built increasingly on sustaining pathways.

My intent for going about this energy journey is stated as the following:

• I will focus on the value/impact of innovation within the Energy Transition (core)
• Build out my consistent focus on being a Business Builder and offer perspectives, opinions, and outlooks
• My belief that there are different aspects of activism to bring focus to this transformation, these needs articulating.
• The scope, pace, and directions of the energy change do need a real sense of action and urgency. I want to add some momentum that contributes to that.
• The broader perspective, putting content into context, giving knowledge and insight needs consistently framing and often revising as new insights, innovations, and breakthroughs occur. I want to understand and translate these.
• I see myself as the Outsider looking into the Energy World and still struggle in the world of Engineers, Scientists, and Policy Makers. My voice adds, perhaps, a common understanding that more of us can relate to, on the expertise offered.
• The position of a storyteller, building different narratives in my view, does advance the energy transition in distinct and tangible ways.
• The (absolute) needs within the Energy Systems will require multiple solutions and significant change, my aim is to relate these so we can make the transition from the existing to the new as it offers a better cleaner world or should.
• The significant potential for new market design, different business models, and system operation solutions offers a real business opportunity that needs triggering. Pointing to insights and shifts promotes this as opportunities to explore and exploit.
• The Energy Transition is one of today’s significant challenges in energy, climate, and for our planet.
• The fascination with new enabling technologies, exploring and exploiting these is full of creative spaces, rich in distinctive and radical breakthroughs, innovation is core to the Energy Transition to succeed and be transformed,

To sum up my three imperatives here.

• There is so much societal need for this transition, it needs framing and building differently.
• The Energy Transition is one of today’s significant challenges in merging energy, climate, and for the wellbeing of our planet.
• My desire is to add more impact, understanding, and awareness and to find ways to make a growing contribution.

My Energy Journey is being navigated across three-time and opportunity related horizons.

For many years I have been a powerful advocate for applying the three horizon framework and the thinking that should go int it, to offer a very effective way to “translate change” and gain a shared identification.

You can pick up on how I have evolved my thinking and built my approaches out on the three horizons by doing a “search” in the search box of this site.

Equally within my “insights and thinking,” there is a collection of thinking on The Three Horizon Framework for Managing Innovation. I always come at solutions or problems seeking understanding by applying my innovation expertise as it is “making informed change” that allows us to advance.

The Energy transition works well in the three horizon thinking. Let me provide the reason why.

• The current horizon (H1) identifies the existing prevailing or dominant system and the challenges to its sustainability into the future, i.e. the case for change in the energy system to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels (horizon 1). Innovation can lose the ‘fit’ aspects over time or has lacked that “galvanizing effect” as the external environment changes but needs recognition. It is unless you understand the current constraints, issues, and context you want to change, you struggle to change towards the new future.
• The third horizon (H3) is how to think through and move towards the desired future state, the ideal system you seek, and the emerging options that need exploring and exploiting. Central to this future state is shaping the solutions that can displace what you have. Often you can identify elements in the present (h1) that give you encouragement ( h3). Yet, it is keeping yourself open to all options that could lead to transformational change early on allows you to explore in multiple thinking ways, and it is exploring these openly, in highly collaborative environments give you the pathway to make the changes, based on a progression of business case deliverables.
• The second horizon (H2) is the one you need to move through. It is the place to let go of much of the past. Yet, it also allows you to build, experiment, and validate these solutions that seem viable for the future. It is in this horizon 2 that you identify how to draw out the nature of the tensions and dilemmas between vision and reality. You can separate the distinction between innovations that serve to prolong the status quo needed and necessary (keep the lights on, allow for a bridge from one fuel system (oil, gas, coal) to another that is more sustaining and based on technology breakthroughs and the renewables available (wind, solar, water).
• You work towards solutions that serve to bring the third horizon vision closer to reality. The H2 is the space of transition, often unstable and uncertain, called the intermediate space where views can collide and diverge but are the horizon mechanisms that traverse current needs and future positions. It captures the aspects that require the most significant attention and provides the dialogue to enable the transition from the existing to the (possible) future to be seen and appreciated by all the multiple players that have a vested interest.

So as I investigate, build and explore the Energy transition the three horizons as it becomes a highly valuable framing mechanism to take knowledge, insights and translate those into the different horizons and their needs, and this begins to determine the resources, investment, and challenging complexities this faces. You do work them in that order H1- H3- H2.

For me, it is a wonderful “dialoguing” framework we should universally adopt to relate to the bigger picture of the parts of the Energy transition. One that has the necessary granularity to get into the specifics of change and where they (logically) fit. I work through it in this way, which becomes logical as a dialoguing mechanism.

The idea for this came from the team over at H3Uni and from this, I developed my Three Horizon Seven Action Mapping Frame (not shown here) as the Energy Transition requires a pathway style approach.

My near-term building out of work relates to Decarbonization and, initially Hydrogen.

My intension over the next couple of weeks is to frame Decarbonization and as the “kick-off” to this is to build out the Hydrogen part into these three horizons in my thinking. By focusing on one specific energy vector (hydrogen) then will begin to inform the larger challenge of decarbonization and what needs to be in place for any successful transition to happen.

The other part of my thinking and work in these coming weeks is to build my ecosystem understanding of energy dependence with Hydrogen and visualize some outcomes by taking this approach. What will emerge is planned to be outlined on my dedicated “Ecosystems4innovators” posting site. There are so many multilateral initiatives being undertaken, and an ecosystem approach is absolutely necessary but often needs reaffirming as collaboration becomes vital within this complex Energy Transition.

In Summary

So building my Innovation intent has been central to me for twenty years, but this has constantly been ‘funneled down’ into recognizing the value of ecosystems as the business design for innovation is the way to go in the future. This collaborative ecosystem approach allows us greater potential to explore and deliver more significant value creation in unique relationships and networks. Now with my increased focus in the past two-plus years, the whole Energy Transition is becoming my future platform to apply my innovation learning and ecosystem thinking.

We are at an exciting time for translating the Energy transition. I am getting so much out of this that can be applied, built out, and does inform my advisory business and my knowledge sharing posting sites, activities that drive me each day.

The level of innovation intensity within the Energy Transition is a fascinating one and one I continually place more and more a focus upon.

One really critical source of reference for tracking clean energy progress comes from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The recent reporting back on the development of the energy transition we are undertaking seems depressing reading. We need to accelerate innovation and technology adoption.

We are so off track for much of the Energy Transition. if we are going to get anywhere near the Paris Agreement, and the below 2-degree climate goal set by 2050, we need to focus even more on transforming our energy systems globally.

The IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS) offers a pathway for the global energy system to reach three strategic goals: the Paris Agreement’s well below 2°C climate goal, universal energy access, and substantially reducing air pollution. The IEA assesses the status of 46 critical energy technologies and sectors and offers some general advice on how to get “on track” with this SDS approach.

Presently there is a rising concern the Covid-19 has knocked us off a path.

In the short term, the dramatic economic downturn has given rise to seeing air pollution levels drop during the “lockdown” months, but as was seen after the 2008 /9 financial crisis when the economy came “roaring back,” so did the carbon emissions.

There is significant pressure on Governments as they attempt to stimulate their economies. The fiscal stimulus should be tied to a firm commitment to moving towards a greener economy. At the moment, those that rely on fossil fuels are getting significant support to sustain their current activities, and it seems they are not required to commit to changing their reliance on their fossil fuel dependence.

That lack of commitment to change to a clean energy pathway is, in my opinion, plainly wrong as we have a finite period between 2020 and 2030 to make the energy transition to renewables unstoppable.

The IEA Tracking Focus gives us a top picture of the challenges and complexity of the Energy transition.

I think it is worth referencing here the way the IEA breaks down to track clean energy progress, it is a pathway that needs innovation to be central.

The IEA track the following aspects of the energy system; power, fuel, industry, transport, buildings, and energy integration. Presently they are well behind the position needed to achieve this less than 2 degrees C climate goal.

Just reflect how difficult this energy transition actually is. Not only in a wholesale, radical change to our energy fuel, generation, transmission, utilization, and consumption but in the levels of existing investment that need changing, writing off as potentially stranded assets (coal generation), or being replaced by new technologies based on renewables.

Assets investments are made are upwards of thirty years or more, depending on upgrade, use, and environmental conditions. This can even be twice the period, so dealing in achieving the momentum by 2030 and getting to deliver clean energy targets by 2050 is a relatively tough one in such a short time of thirty years. We need to “push” for change now, certainly in the next five years.

No one is going to stop investment in proven, tested technology, processes. Nor will they argue against infrastructure and energy delivery systems that are reliable, safe, and provide us secure, consistent, and dependable energy, products we rely upon, and jobs dependant on delivering services and products that are demand dependant on the energy system. The need, though, is to shift these from fossil fuel to renewables for a better, sustainable, and healthy world to live in.

A conflicting world full of complexity and tough challenges

We are faced with so many conflicting forces, the lobbyists arguing for an extension to coal, oil, and gas in subsidies or protection for energy security reasons. All Governments have to make tough choices, political ones where one party has strong community support as it backs coal or oil to know new technologies and renewables are driving prices down below their present energy sources.

Each of our economies has become “highly” dependent on existing fuel sources, and the energy security issues are beginning to dominate discussions. There is intense Lobbying to keep investments and make them more efficient is on one side. Then, on the other hand, backed by Scientists, Environmental fractions, and a growing public feeling is that we are feeling the effects of global warming.

This planet-warming is becoming unacceptable, the vast majority is beginning to accept that feeling our planet is under growing “stress” from the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions is forcing real change to happen. We must move beyond lobbying and debates and undertake a world order based on renewables that are sustaining and carbon and polluting gas-free for a healthier world.

To move away from fossil fuels and all of its associated risks and sustained investment over the last century-plus is a difficult one. Yet by relacing energy sources that are dependeânt on natural resources of the sun, wind and water are making for a compelling investment case. Those that become “first movers” can gain significant competitive positions. Economies and their future “fortune” can be radically altered by merely “hanging on” too long and seeing private investment shift countries seeking that new combination of modern infrastructure, low energy prices, and healthier environments.

I want to put the conflicting forces into some form of context by breaking this down using the IEA method of trancking clean energies.

Tracking Power

• The IEA is tracking power across the global; in the activities, investments, and positions of Renewable power , Solar PV Onshore wind, Offshore wind Hydropower, Bioenergy power generation Concentrating solar power (CSP) Geothermal Ocean power Nuclear power Natural gas-fired power Coal-fired power and CCUS in power (Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage)

The “sum” of where we are is today. Power sector emissions declined by 1.3% in 2019, while emissions intensity decreased by 2.5%. The IEA states, unfortunately, recent trends are not on track with the SDS, which requires that power sector emissions fall an average of 4% per year to 2030, and electricity emissions intensity drops 5.6% annually.

Tracking Fuel Supply

• Emissions from oil and gas extraction, processing, and transport rose marginally in 2018 to around 5.4 GtCO2-eq – approximately 15% of the global energy sector GHG emissions. Over half of these emissions (2.7 GtCO2-eq) came from flaring and methane released during oil and gas operations. The IEA tracks specifically Methane emissions from oil and gas and Flaring emissions

The available data suggests that there is a significant variation between the best and the worst-performing companies on these issues, so a vital task is to ensure that best practices and operational excellence on these emissions become standard across the industry as a whole. Considerably enhanced policy ambitions and regulatory efforts, better measurement and reporting, strong industry efforts, and investor-led support are needed to meet SDS targets for 2040, along with technological progress to improve the effectiveness of leak detection, measurement, and abatement.

Tracking Industry

• The principal industries, regarded as the “prime” polluters or emitters of high levels of Co2 and other greenhouse gases, are specifically monitored. These are Chemicals Iron and steel Cement Pulp and paper Aluminium and how CCUS in industry and transformation is performing.

Direct industrial CO2 emissions, including process emissions, declined 0.6% to 8.5 GtCO2 in 2018 (24% of global emissions), which is good news, but industry emissions must fall by 1.2% annually to 7.4 GtCO2 by 2030 – despite expected industrial production growth.

Greater energy efficiency, the uptake of renewable fuels, and research and deployment of low-carbon process routes, including CCS, are all critical. Governments can accelerate progress by providing innovation funding and adopting mandatory CO2 emissions reduction and energy efficiency policies.

Tracking Transport

• Transport covers all our sectors Electric vehicles Rail Fuel consumption of cars and vans Trucks and buses the sue of Transport biofuels to significantly switch fuels in the Aviation & International shipping sectors

Global transport emissions increased by less than 0.5% in 2019 (compared with 1.9% annually since 2000) owing to efficiency improvements, electrification, and greater use of biofuels. Nevertheless, transportation is still responsible for 24% of direct CO2 emissions from fuel combustion. Road vehicles – cars, trucks, buses, and two- and three-wheelers – account for nearly three-quarters of transport CO2 emissions, and emissions from aviation and shipping continue to rise, highlighting the need for a greater international policy focus on these hard-to-abate subsectors.

Tracking Buildings

• It always staggers me how much off the Co2 comes from our buildings. The IEA monitor Building envelopes Heating Heat pumps Cooling Lighting Appliances and equipment and Data centers and data transmission networks

Energy-related CO2 emissions from buildings have risen in recent years after flattening between 2013 and 2016. Direct and indirect emissions from electricity and commercial heat used in buildings rose to 10 GtCO2 in 2019, the highest level ever recorded.

Several factors have contributed to this rise, including growing energy demand for heating and cooling with rising air-conditioner ownership and extreme weather events.

Enormous emissions reduction potential remains untapped due to the continued use of fossil fuel-based assets, a lack of effective energy-efficiency policies, and insufficient investment in sustainable buildings. This is the really vital one that is in ALL of our hands to expect and encourage change.

Tracking energy Integration

• The ability to integrate our energy systems to combine fossil fuel and renewables has to accelerate, the whole issue of sector coupling, storage, and transmission is locked into this energy transition debate. Innovative solutions need to enable this energy integration and then transition into just renewables over the next thirty years.
• This is a really fascinating area to watch of leveraging Energy storage Hydrogen Smart grids Demand response and Direct air capture. These areas are needing deeper innovation funding and co-ordinating from policy support to fund experimentation, piloting, and extensive scaling out, all on demanding time scales.

To align with the SDS, industry emissions must fall by 1.2% annually to 7.4 GtCO2 by 2030 – despite expected industrial production growth. Greater energy efficiency, the uptake of renewable fuels, and research and deployment of low-carbon process routes, including CCS, are all critical. Governments can accelerate progress by providing innovation funding and adopting mandatory CO2 emissions reduction and energy efficiency policies.

The consistent reposting by the IEA along the 46 critical energy technologies or sectors does give a good focal point to direct innovation. What we see today, we are not on track, we have been arguably blown off track by the pandemic and the required economic stimulus required to “kick start” our economies back into “normal” life.

We do expect a return to some form of (new) normal of expecting growth, wealth creation, and jobs. Yet what is ahead of us will have even a more significant impact unless we address it, global warming.

This needs us to transform the energy systems globally so we can have a chance still to stop this planet from warming even further and giving us improved health, economic and environmental possibilities. The effects of the present Covid-19 surely give us all a wake-up call. It is how global failure has an enormous impact, and the concern is here that we are moving from one crisis into a longer, more dangerous one.

Unless we change the course of where we seem to be heading in fueling our energy needs with harmful emissions, we face rapid global warming that will not protect us. We have no second planet, and it is not just developing a vaccine to make us all feel safe, this is threatening human life as we have known it, pandemics included.

** the majority of this post has been drawn from the Tracking clean energies IEA report, published in June 2020 and brought out my own views or thinking