Back around 2009, one of the premier consulting companies in the western world, McKinsey developed a strategic model called the “3 horizons model”. There is a heap of information available on the internet about its origins and applications. From the McKinsey website, though, you can find some introductory information here:
As you navigate around you will find different ways it is used but for the purposes of F2O BluePrint I’d like to give you a practical construct of how you can apply it.
I want you to divide your timeline for strategy implementation in to three time buckets:
• Now,
• Next,
• Later
Now, I personally don’t think you have to have a fixed amount of time that these buckets need to be; it is what is useful to you for guiding your strategic planning. Let me add some thinking by augmenting the buckets to guide you:
• Now (what must we do first, strategically, to make everything else work). Timeline suggestion 0-6 months,
• Next (what are the items we will do next strategically to make things come together). Timeline suggestion 6 – 18 months,
• Later (what are the strategic items that come last but make the strategy glow). Timeline suggestion 18-36 months
In this way you can divide up your strategy implementation in to 36 months (3 year). For me this is one strategic horizon. We can now create a 10-year plan by adding Horizon 2 and Horizon 3. These will be our next strategic implementation phases that we haven’t plotted out in detail as yet. But this will allow us to set a mission that has 10 years to achieve, divided in to three strategic horizons. We have a rough idea of what will happen in each horizon but not the full implementation approach. We plan that as we approach and are satisfied with the realization of the current horizon.
