Product 2015

Strategy Blueprint

Six fields that force a strategy to say something: challenges, aspirations, focus areas, guiding principles, activities, outcomes.

What it is

Kalbach's answer to strategy documents nobody can act on: six connected fields that move from the challenges you face to the outcomes you'll measure, with focus areas and guiding principles doing the hard narrowing in the middle. If the fields don't exclude anything, you don't have a strategy yet.

Reach for it when

• A \"strategy\" deck lists goals but nothing it won't do
• A design or product org needs its bets on one page before annual planning
• Two departments claim the same strategy and behave differently

Running it

1. Brainstorm challenges first, alone then together. Real obstacles, not competitor envy.
2. Write aspirations as futures someone could disagree with.
3. Pick at most three focus areas. The discarded ones are the strategy too.
4. Draft guiding principles as sentences a team could quote in a decision. 90 minutes end to end.