Investment Horizons
To survive and thrive, an organization must do everything simultaneously: Maintenance, Improvement, Extension, and Disruption (or, if you prefer: Horizons zero to three).
Investment Horizons: Maintenance • Improvement • Extension • Disruption
Purpose
Organizations must often spread their investments in Maintenance, Improvement, Extension, and Disruption.
Typically, they do this simultaneously for different products or crews, meaning they have different types of investment going on simultaneously. The Investment Horizon patterns help to set the focus for Crews in the unFIX model.
(Often, these focus areas are called Horizons zero to three, which is why these patterns are named investment horizons.)
Notes
The four focus areas in the unFIX model allow you to annotate your organization design to clarify what happens where. Which teams are responsible for Maintenance and Improvement? Where does Extension take place in the company? And does management give sufficient attention to Disruption in the same Base, or do you expect other Bases to take care of this?
Rules / Constraints
It is usually best not to mix Disruption with other investment horizons. Those who work on disruptive innovations should not also have to worry about “Business As Usual”.
“The biggest risk of all is not taking one.”
(Source: Mellody Hobson)