For children and families to flourish in the future, the people who aim to serve them need to take an honest look at how their systems operate today, articulate bold aspirations for the future, and chart a path toward that vision.
Futures thinking is a discipline that helps users to examine their current realities, explore possibilities for the future, and chart informed, future-facing paths forward.
This approach empowers leaders to shape the future that young children will inherit and to resist the notion that the future is out of our control.
This toolkit supports that effort and those conversations. It contains instructions, examples, and templates for three futures thinking methods that can be used by anyone who wants to create powerful long-term change for children and families.
This toolkit was originally published in September 2022.
Overview
Each method in this toolkit can spark deep conversation and insight and set the stage for bold action.
Additionally, each tool can be applied to an entire system, to an organization such as a specific child care center or network, or even to a single program or initiative. Any topic that has a current reality and possibilities for the future can be examined using these tools.
The three tools—The Systems Iceberg, Three Horizons, and Now vs. Future—are described below.
The Systems Iceberg
The Systems Iceberg is a tool from the field of systems thinking that can help us stop and look at how a system is working beneath the surface so that we can understand what is happening at a deep level, before attempting to create change. It enables us to articulate not only the events and circumstances that we can see and experience but also the patterns, structures, and beliefs that are contributing to them. The iceberg is also useful in assessing whether potential solutions are addressing the symptoms or the root causes of a problem.
Three Horizons
The Three Horizons method uses the concept of time horizons to help us consider what is and is not working today, what the future might hold, and what transitions and mid-term innovations might bridge the two. Created by Bill Sharpe of International Futures Forum, the Three Horizons method can help us manage long-term change. It looks across time to help people examine systemic patterns. It enables us to examine how we might best run the current system while innovating toward a future that serves emerging needs, not the old needs for which the current system was designed.
Now vs. Future
The Now vs. Future tool can help us specify our vision for the future, diagnose our current reality, clarify the gaps between the two, and identify ways forward. This tool can extend a visioning process by enabling us to understand what we would observe and experience if our visions become reality. It also helps to identify actions that could take us from where we are to where we want to be.
Ideal Uses for Each Tool
These tools do not come with hard-and-fast rules about when to use them.
Applying different tools to the same subject can yield a wide range of interesting insights. However, each tool has elements that make it ideal for certain situations.
Use the Systems Iceberg if you want to…
- Create a shared understanding of the topic, including what is often unseen and unsaid by people attempting to create change.
- Identify root causes of what you observe and experience.
- Examine and reflect on the deep narratives and stories that underpin events, patterns, and structures.
- Assess whether a proposed solution will address the symptoms of a problem or the root cause.
Use Three Horizons if you want to…
- Map out possible near-, mid-, and long-term futures in a rapidly changing context.
- Identify what aspects of today’s approaches to retain, let go of, or nurture and grow.
- Generate ideas about innovations that will support a transition from today to a visionary future.
- Begin to craft new narratives that describe an aspirational future.
Use Now vs. Future if you want to…
- Create a shared understanding of what your vision would look like in practice.
- Compare key similarities and differences between the current reality and the ideal future.
- Articulate the narratives that are in place today and those that would need to be in place to support the ideal future.
- Develop next-step strategies after creating a vision.
Any of these tools can be applied by one person.
But their full potential is unlocked when they are completed in groups, by people with a variety of perspectives and lived experiences of the subject and a stake in its future.
The Systems Iceberg Tool
The Systems Iceberg tool can be applied in two ways:
- To help leaders and other stakeholders deconstruct and examine a problem within their system or organization.
- To help them assess the depth of the solutions that they might use to address it.
Using the Systems Iceberg to Deconstruct a Problem
Select one problem within the system or organization
Try to be specific and select an observable problem that affects people who interact with the system or organization in different ways.
Discuss the following questions
- What is seen and known as it relates to the problem? What are today’s lived experiences? Capture your observations at the Event level.
- What has been seen and known over time? What are the trends related to what you observe? Capture your responses at the Pattern level.
- What structures, policies, norms, or rules contribute to those trends? Capture your insights at the Structures level.
- What beliefs, values, and mindsets justify those structures? Capture your thoughts at the Belief level.
Review your completed Systems Iceberg and reflect on the following questions
- What new questions do you have about the problem?
- What do you understand about your system or organization that you may not have seen before?
- How might other people affected by the system see the Events, Patterns, Structures, and Beliefs differently than you do? In what areas do you need different perspectives or more information to understand how the system is operating?
Using the Systems Iceberg to Assess the Depth of Proposed Solutions
Select a solution that you are proposing to solve the problem from your iceberg
- You may explore a solution that has already been proposed or develop a new solution.
Discuss the following solution-assessment questions
- Is the solution reacting to events? Are we shifting resources, setting a standard without making any additional changes, or buffering the effects of what already exists?
- Is the solution anticipating and responding to what is likely to happen based on patterns from the past? Are we working to speed things up, slow them down, or strengthen interventions that seem to be working well?
- Is the solution designing new structures? Are we changing the policies, habits, or rules that govern what we do or the way the elements of the system or organization relate?
- Is the solution transforming what people believe about the system or organization? Are we setting new visions and goals and changing the values and mindsets that underpin the system?
Analyze options for deepening the solution by doing one of these things
- Ask yourself: Can the solution be adjusted to address the problem at a deeper level? What could you do that would address the structure or belief level?
- Alternatively, select a structure or belief that must be changed to address the problem in a meaningful way. Use the solution-assessment questions to inspire ideas about the types of solutions that could shift structures or beliefs.
The Three Horizons Tool
The Three Horizons tool, created by Bill Sharpe of International Futures Forum, can help leaders and stakeholders understand what is happening today, articulate their preferred future and, identify preferred innovations and strategies for moving toward it.
Look at Horizon One
Consider how well current approaches are working and where they are falling short. Use the present tense to describe what is happening today.
- Take into account people’s various experiences.
- Also discuss current approaches’ fit with the changing external environment.
- Aim to identify some things you might want to let go of and some things you might want to keep.
Set Your Sights on Horizon Three
Consider how well current approaches are working and where they are falling short. Use the present tense to describe what is happening today.
- Start by considering how the external environment – including the social, technological, economic, environmental, and political landscapes – and people’s needs are changing:
- Bring in some information on future trends or images of the future to stretch your thinking about possibilities (see, for example, our Foundations for Flourishing Futures forecast).
- Consider looking at ways adjacent sectors have been changing, as there might be things to learn from them – or things to avoid.
- Consider generating or looking at scenarios for alternative futures of the system to explore what it might look like depending how different uncertainties played out or what assumptions about change proved true.
- Then generate ideas for your ideal future. Options include:
- Identify attributes that you want and do not want to see in the future (be specific).
- Consider what other people might and might not want for the future – and why.
- Develop a rich picture that describes what people would be hearing, seeing, and experiencing (if you like, you can develop rich pictures for different personas to surface what an ideal future might look like from a range of perspectives).
- Draw your ideal future and describe what is happening in the illustration.
- Use another technique of your choosing.
- Capture some key aspects of your ideal future for ongoing reference. It can help to start off, “In ten years….”
Turn Back to Horizon Two
Examine current and potential innovations and strategies that could sustain horizon one or lay groundwork for horizon three. Use the conditional tense to describe approaches that could help bridge between horizons one and three.
- Identify some current innovations and discuss whether they are sustaining innovations that will help keep horizon one going or transformative innovations that could help introduce horizon three.
- Generate ideas for other innovations or strategies that could bridge between horizons one and three. Discuss which ones could help the topic that you are examining run as well as possible over the next few years and which ones are pushing toward your ideal future. Note that a strategy could involve discontinuing something that you or others are doing today.
- Select which innovations or strategies seem most powerful.
- Discuss which of those you might be able to adopt or influence.
- Identify a few near-term actions that promise to advance those strategies or innovations.
Commit to reviewing these actions at a designated interval to check in about what you have been learning and what you might need to adjust.
Further guidance on working with the Three Horizons method is available from the International Futures Forum and H3Uni. These include three method facilitation guides (see the Methods section).
The Now vs. Future Tool
The Now vs. Future tool can help stakeholder groups specify their visions, explore what those visions would entail, and identify action steps to move toward them.
The tool is adapted from the Vision Deployment Matrix, a systems thinking tool developed by Daniel Kim.
Populate the Ideal Future column
The purpose of this section is to build understanding of shared aspirations and to surface what would have to be in place to bring that vision forth and uphold it.
- Start at the top of the column.
- In the box labeled “Vision,” ask: What vision do your aspirations reflect?
- In the box labeled “Beliefs,” ask: What do people believe that supports that vision?
- In the box labeled “Structures,” ask: What types of plans, policies, or structures reflect those beliefs?
- In the box labeled “Activities,” ask: In an ideal future, what activities and events are taking place as a result of those structures?
Populate the Current Reality column
The purpose of this section is to build understanding of what is in place today and surface the unstated beliefs and guiding ideas that uphold current reality.
- Start at the bottom of the column.
- In the box labeled “Activities,” ask: Thinking about how things are now, what do people tend to do day to day?
- In the box labeled “Structures,” ask: What types of plans, policies, or structures have led to those activities and events?
- In the box labeled “Beliefs,” ask: What stated or unstated beliefs do those structures reflect?
- In the box labeled “Vision,” ask: Considering what you observe today, what vision would characterize most of the system today?
Populate the Critical Gaps column
- Starting in any row, notice and capture the gaps between the current reality and the ideal future.
- Focus on the gaps that are most important to close to reach the ideal future or ones that seem surprising.
Populate the Strategies column
- Starting in any row, begin to brainstorm strategies for closing those gaps.
- You will not generate a comprehensive plan but rather a set of ideas to explore further.
- Consider both efforts that are already underway that could be leveraged to narrow the gaps or new strategies that could target the gaps directly.
- You may not identify strategies for every row at this stage. Start with the gaps that feel most important.
Reflect on insights
- What do you now understand about the topic that you had not recognized before?
- What aspects of the ideal future seem most important to pursue?
- What first step could you take toward enacting any of the strategies?
Using the Future to Take Action Today
The future is inherently uncertain, but futures-thinking tools can help people navigate that uncertainty and chart the path ahead.
Stakeholders have the responsibility to engage in bold, aspirational, and long-term thinking that can lead to new avenues of innovation, unlikely but meaningful partnerships, and a fresh mindset about what it will take to help children and families flourish in the future.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Katie King, Katherine Prince, and Maria Crabtree at KnowledgeWorks for writing the content and helping us to produce this toolkit. KnowledgeWorks is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing personalized learning that empowers every child to take ownership of their success. Toolkit designed by True Identity Digital.
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