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Growth horizons

Separating what defends today’s business from what builds the next one and what merely keeps an option open. Each needs different funding, measures and tolerance for failure.

The idea

How it works

Work aimed at three different distances cannot be judged by one standard. Defending the existing business should be predictable; building the next one should not be; seeding options should mostly fail.

Where the distinction is not made explicit, the near horizon wins every time — not because anyone decided it should, but because it is the only one that can show a return this year.

Working with it

In practice

  1. 01

    Sort current work into three

    Defends the core, builds what is next, or keeps an option open. Everything lands somewhere.

  2. 02

    Set a share for each

    A rough allocation of money and attention. The number matters less than having made the choice deliberately.

  3. 03

    Give each its own measures

    Return on the near horizon, learning on the middle, optionality on the far. Judging all three on return kills two of them.

  4. 04

    Protect the far horizon in writing

    It will be raided under pressure unless there is something explicit to point at.

One level in

The components of growth horizons

A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.

  1. The horizon map

    Current initiatives sorted into the three horizons.

    Learn

  2. The allocation

    The agreed share of resource going to each, and who signs off on changing it.

    Learn

  3. Measures per horizon

    The distinct standard each horizon is judged by.

    Learn

A portfolio with nothing in the far horizon is not necessarily wrong, but it should be a decision rather than a discovery.

The other modules in long term goals

Long-range ambition

The single stated destination: specific enough to recognise on arrival, distant enough that the route is not yet designed.

Learn

Direction of growth

Whether the ambition is reached through existing markets and offers, new offers, new markets, or genuinely new ground. Naming the direction is what makes the risk visible.

Learn

Assumptions and scenarios

What has to remain true for the goal to make sense, written down where it can be checked. A long goal is a claim about the future, and claims can be falsified.

Learn
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