Innovations can be high risk, low risk, and everything in between. They must be managed along with all the other activities and investments going on at the time. However, because of cultural and historical norms within a company, managing almost any innovation often gets bundled with managing high risks, regardless of the actual level of risk or the appropriate expectations for that phase of the development. 3DRM provides a method and, more broadly, a framework for assessing all risks with a phase-appropriate, strategically targeted consequence factor. This method includes the understanding of the need for failure on the way to success (analogous to the bypass in a turbine process) and allows for opportunity costs of not taking risks. Once the consequences for an organization are customized with regard to the vision, mission, and strategy of the organization by phase or maturity level, all risks and innovations can be parsed and managed for optimum performance.