The three horizons
Balancing a portfolio across time between the current business, the emerging businesses that will matter in a few years, and the options that might disrupt everything. For an engineering roadmap, the executive question is how much capacity serves today's product, how much builds the platform the strategy needs, and how much explores.
Evidence grade: practice A widely adopted practitioner model with clear provenance.
Use it when
Roadmapping at executive scope; making the horizon mix an explicit decision instead of an accident.
Where it stops working
The right proportions depend on context. The framework names the dimensions and leaves the answer to you.
Where the standard uses it
- SV-3RoadmappingBalancing product delivery against platform and quality investment.
Sources
- Mehrdad Baghai, Stephen Coley and David White. The Alchemy of Growth: Practical Insights for Building the Enduring Enterprise. Perseus Books, 1999. In the bibliography
Used alongside it
- Explicit capacity allocation practice
- Staged bets and checkpoints practice
- Sunk-cost discipline research
Cite this model
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). The three horizons. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, TEC.three-horizons). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/techniques/three-horizons