By Vijoy Pandey
When McKinsey introduced the Three Horizons of Growth model in 1999, it gave enterprises a time-based vocabulary for thinking about innovation portfolios: the three-to-five-year Horizon 3 for the long-range bets, the medium-term Horizon 2 for adjacencies, and the immediate- and short-term Horizon 1 for the core business.
The Three Horizons model worked well for roughly two decades, but eventually many innovation leaders sensed that the organizing axis, time, had become unreliable. In the age of rapid software development, a Horizon 3 idea could become a Horizon 1 business within a quarter.
If leaders couldn’t organize growth around time, then what should replace it? The answer is risk.
Why Time Broke
