Strategic Thinking
Strategy is choosing what not to do as much as what to do. End with explicit bets and guardrails.
When to use
- Choosing a direction for a product, team, company, technology platform or career under real constraints.
- Competitive positioning, "where to play and how to win", roadmap narrative, portfolio trade-offs.
- Leadership or board-style narrative that links goals to constraints.
Skip: step-by-step implementation detail, or choosing between two concrete options on named criteria.
Before you start
- State in one block: Strategic question (one sentence) and Pass (Intent, Landscape, Advantage, Options, Choice, Risks and Cadence).
- Gather first. Read the roadmap, docs, metrics or market notes you can reach before writing Landscape. Never invent market facts; say what is unknown. Ask up to 3 questions only for goals and non-negotiables that tools cannot answer.
- Light path. Small ask: 1-2 lines per phase, 2 options, same order.
- If the user wants a memo or deck storyline, add a Short story after Risks and Cadence (5-7 sentences: tension, insight, decision, proof path).
Phases
1. Intent
Win definition: which outcome, by when. Non-goals: what is explicitly out of scope.
2. Landscape
Forces that matter: customers, competition, technology, regulation, economics. Use Implication: bullets, not encyclopedic lists. Keep short when information is thin.
3. Advantage (or Honest gap)
Where could durable advantage come from: assets, learning loops, distribution, data, brand, cost? If none is credible, say so and pivot to how to build one.
4. Options
2-4 genuinely different strategies:
Option: ... - Bet: ... - Cost: ... - Kill signal: ...
5. Choice
Name one primary option (parallel bets only if clearly justified). Say why now and what you are deferring or rejecting.
6. Risks and Cadence
Top 3 risks with mitigations. Then a near-term focus, a longer-term thesis and a review trigger (a metric or event that forces a rethink). Match the horizons to the domain: 90 days and 12 months suit a business plan; an architecture or career decision may need different spans, so state the spans you chose.
Pitfalls
- Platitudes ("innovate", "customer-centric") with no mechanism.
- Options that are really one option in different words.
- A Choice that introduces a strategy not in Options. Label it a revision if so.
- Advantage claimed with no evidence. Use Honest gap.
Worked example: references/example.md.
Checklist
- Strategic question and Pass stated
- Intent includes non-goals
- Options use Bet, Cost, Kill signal
- Choice explicit, with what is deferred or rejected
- Risks and Cadence: top 3 risks, stated horizons, review trigger