Good strategy / Bad strategy

These are actually notes from another author's notes.

Strategy is designing a way to deal with a challenge. It consists of three parts:

A diagnosis - what is the challenge? Define it. Ideally, try to keep it simple. Often uses a metaphor, analogy, or existing accepted framework
A guiding policy (guiding principle) - the overall approach to overcome obstacles in your diagnosis. This directs and constrains actions. Think of it as guardrails.
A set of coherent actions - how are you going to carry out the guiding policy? These need to be coherent.

Good strategy is:

simple and obvious
identifies the root cause and the challenge
includes actions to overcome the challenge. Not strategy, not vision. Actions.
is co-ordinated and coherent. Everyone is on the same page, and everything points in the same direction. Actions don't conflict with other actions
is focused. It doesn't let [[20230411101852-scope-creep]] happen.

Identifying bad strategy:

Fluff. Not actually a strategy, just gibberish and jargon that sounds like high-level thinking.
Failure to identify the challenge.
Mistaking goals for strategy. Goals are not a strategy, they're just a desire.
Bad strategic objectives. Objectives should be feasible and address critical issues.

Forms of bad strategy:

A long to-do list. Usually don't have a diagnosis, a guiding policy, or any sort of coherence.
Blue Sky Objectives. A restatement of a goal, without any plan on how to get there
The Unwillingness or Inability to Choose. If a strategy has universal buy-in, it's not a good sign. There should be someone worse off as resources need to be focused.
New thought. Envisioning failure does not lead to failure. Ignoring the possibility of failure is short-sighted and drowns out critical thinking.