The answer is not to choose, but to separate and fund both deliberately. Reliable delivery keeps the business running today; innovation keeps it relevant tomorrow. A CTO must protect time and structure for each.
A way to balance them
ALLOCATE CAPACITY EXPLICITLY (a common split)
- ~70% → core delivery & incremental improvement
- ~20% → adjacent bets and larger improvements
- ~10% → exploration / genuinely new ideas
PROTECT INNOVATION FROM DELIVERY PRESSURE
- Dedicated time/teams so it is not crushed by deadlines
- Accept that most experiments will fail
The horizon model (core / adjacent / transformational) helps ensure you are not investing entirely in the present.
Concrete example
A CTO runs delivery teams on predictable quarterly commitments while funding a small innovation track with hack weeks and a few engineers exploring a new architecture, so urgent delivery never fully starves the future.
