3 Horizons of Growth Template
Concurrently manage current and future opportunities for growth.
About the 3 Horizons of Growth template
What is the 3 Horizons of Growth model?
As companies grow, it can be difficult to keep innovating at the same pace. Innovation is often discarded in favor of inertia. To keep up their momentum, organizations have to balance their existing business with potential growth opportunities. That’s where the 3 Horizons framework comes in.
First introduced in The Alchemy of Growth, the 3 Horizons of Growth model helps companies assess potential growth opportunities while finding ways to maintain existing business. C-suite leaders use the 3 Horizons model as a blueprint for investing in current products and services while looking to the future. But its use is not confined to the C-suite. Teams across the organization can make use of the 3 Horizons model to ensure their projects map to the organization’s goals.
What are the 3 Horizons?
The 3 Horizons represent current opportunities, future opportunities that require substantial investment, and ideas for future opportunities that can be used as experiments, pilots, or minority stakes in new businesses.
How do you use the 3 Horizons of Growth template?
Use the 3 Horizons of Growth template when you want to strategically think about your business currently and in the future. The x-axis represents time, but keep in mind that it’s not an indication of what you should be thinking about now vs. later. You should be thinking about all three horizons at the same time. You will always want to cycle between where your business is strong now, which opportunities you believe will be successful in the future, and which opportunities you’d like to explore further.
What are the benefits of the Horizons of Growth model?
Benefit 1 - Take stock of current opportunities. To start, the Horizons of Growth model requires you to make a note of all current opportunities. This exercise helps frame the rest of the model and ensure you’re aligned with your team.
Benefit 2 - Identify future opportunities for investment. The Horizons model empowers you to pinpoint opportunities to maximize cash flow. Use the model to brainstorm with your team and come up with ideas for quick wins.
Benefit 3 - Experiment and iterate. Many C-suite execs use the Horizons of Growth model to find potential areas for experimentation. Those might include research projects, pilot programs, or minority stakes in new business.
When to use the 3 Horizons of Growth model
1. To foster a culture of innovation
2. To create a framework necessary for achieving long-term initiatives
3. To identify opportunities for new business
4. To enhance business analysis and focus on potential challenges
5. To prepare a developmental plan
Get started with this template right now.
Look Mock Analyze Template
Works best for:
Design, Desk Research, Product Management
Doing your homework (aka, the research) is a key step in your design process, and the Look, Mock, Analyze approach helps you examine, structure, and streamline that step. With this powerful tool you’ll be able to identify your strengths and weaknesses, what you did right or wrong, and whether you spent time efficiently. Our Look, Mock, Analyze template makes it so easy for you to discover inspiration, mock up designs, and get feedback — you can start by setting up your board in less than a minute.
REAN Template
Works best for:
Marketing, Strategic Planning, Meetings
First introduced in Cult of Analytics, the REAN model is used to measure and understand the efficacy of marketing efforts. REAN stands for Reach, Engage, Activate, and Nurture, the main stages a marketer’s audiences experience during a typical journey. The REAN model helps marketing teams develop useful KPIs that can help capture how well their marketing or ad campaigns are working. Many teams rely on the REAN model because it is adaptable to a variety of marketing efforts, including planning measurement frameworks, setting goals, deciding on objectives, and mapping digital marketing channels.
Three-Hour Brand Sprint Template
Works best for:
Marketing, Workshops, Sprint Planning
Before customers will believe in your brand, your team has to believe. That’s where brand sprints work wonders. Popularized by the team at Google Ventures, a brand sprint will help your team sort through all different ideas about your brand and align on your brand’s fundamental building blocks—your values, audience, personality, mission statement, roadmap, and more. Whether you’re building a new brand or revamping an existing one, brand sprints are ideal for trigger events such as naming your company, designing a logo, hiring an agency, or writing a manifesto.
Working Backwards Template
Works best for:
Desk Research, Strategic Planning, Product Management
Find out how to use the Working Backwards template to plan, structure, and execute the launch of a new product. Using the template, you’ll figure out if the product is worth launching in the first place.
Cynefin Framework Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Decision Making, Prioritization
Companies face a range of complex problems. At times, these problems leave the decision makers unsure where to even begin or what questions to ask. The Cynefin Framework, developed by Dave Snowden at IBM in 1999, can help you navigate those problems and find the appropriate response. Many organizations use this powerful, flexible framework to aid them during product development, marketing plans, and organizational strategy, or when faced with a crisis. This template is also ideal for training new hires on how to react to such an event.
Agile Board Template
Works best for:
Agile Methodology, Meetings, Agile Workflows
Part of the popular Agile framework, an Agile Board is a visual display that allows you to sync on tasks throughout a production cycle. The Agile Board is typically used in the context of Agile development methods like Kanban and Scrum, but anyone can adopt the tool. Used by software developers and project managers, the Agile Board helps manage workload in a flexible, transparent and iterative way. The Agile template provides an easy way to get started with a premade layout of sticky notes customizable for your tasks and team.