The Kernel of a Good UX Strategy

Dear?Designer,

Did you know that a good strategy should always contain three very specific things?

Those three things are not goals, visions, objectives, or other end-states. They're more core to what strategy is: a creative bridge to where you want to be.

You'd be forgiven for thinking strategy is about objectives or goal-setting. A quick Google search certainly makes it seem like it's all about visions and goals. Strategy, and especially UX strategy, is often wrongly defined as the end goal rather than the path to reach that goal.

How do we make sure we're thinking about strategy in the right way? Very few people can tell you what a good strategy can look like, but Richard Rumelt can.

Richard Rumelt is known as "strategy's strategist," and he wrote a book on strategy because?he was sick and tired of all the vague fluff ?that consultants were selling as a strategy.

He came up with the?kernel of a good strategy?to fight the fluff.

There's more to a strategy than the kernel, but with the kernel, you'll be doing better than 90% of strategists out there.

Notably, the kernel doesn't use visions, missions, and goals?to explain the strategy. It also doesn't explain the strategy by comparing product vs. business vs. UX strategies. It cuts to the core of what every strategy?should?be.

The kernel consists of a?diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent actions. Rumelt uses the example of a doctor to teach the kernel:

1. First, the doctor diagnoses the problem: "Mr. Humble, your blood pressure is high."
2. Next, he selects a therapeutic approach like "You need to eat healthier and exercise."
3. The doctor will then give you specific prescriptive actions to change your body's system: "Eat more vegetables, exercise 3x a week, and let's do another checkup in 6 months."

Following these three steps as a framework can help us create more effective strategies. Let's look at each step a bit closer.

1.) Diagnosis

“What’s happening here?”

Just like any complex problem, it starts with understanding the problem. I see you UX people nodding your heads in the back.

With strategy, there is always a problem to overcome. The problem could come from inside the company, from the competition, or from the users themselves.

The diagnosis is a?judgment?about the facts you uncover in your strategic research. In this phase, you try to frame the business's challenge and search for sources of power that might fuel a good strategy.

Examples: Perhaps your primary customer has found a better way to meet their needs. Or your competitor might have built a platform that offers more options and a better user experience through user-generated plugins. It could also be that your team is organized poorly with political blockers that keep the UX team from delivering a good user experience.

2.) Guiding Policy

“What governing principles will guide our actions?”

Many would call the guiding policy “the strategy.” It may seem odd to design a policy if you're new to strategy, but it makes sense when you understand what strategy does.

A strategy gets its power from coordinating the activities of others in system-wide moves. If they’re not coordinated, they lose their power.

To do that effectively, you need to?guide the system in a specific direction without being overly prescriptive. These guiding policies or system-wide moves should outline your overall approach to overcoming the diagnosis.

Note: Your guiding policy shouldn’t be a vision or a goal. It’s about?how?you will win so don’t mistake the policy for the goal itself.

Strategy is not a goal-setting activity.?It’s about coming up with creative ways of reaching goals. Strategy is all about designing the road, not the destination.

A good guiding policy in UX tells you why and how you can use UX approaches to overcome your company’s challenges. These might take the form of design team principles.

This policy should?align upwards with the existing business strategy?(don’t cancel out other system-wide moves!).

Example: Let’s say your company’s strategy is to win through user-generated features in a marketplace (think Figma’s “community” area). A guiding policy in your UX strategy might be:?Never design a feature that can be a user-generated plugin.?That way, you allow your plugin marketplace to augment your product evolution, rather than compete with it.

3.) Coherent Actions

“What are we going to do?”

A strategy isn’t just an approach outlined in a document. It’s the actions that will carry out that approach. Some strategists stop at policy, which can give strategy this aura of vagueness and vision questing.

The strategy should be multiple actions that erode your obstacles, like waves pounding a beach.

Examples: A coherent action might be changing the people or processes on the team. You might also implement your strategy by diverting resources from one UX project to another.

Another way to think about coherent actions is to?consider them as UX team experiments.?Strategy experiments allow you to have a strategic layer that the UX team can own. I’ve found that a “strategic experiment” is a better sell internally than a “strategic roadmap.” Product managers own "the roadmap" so avoid calling it that if you want the PM on board.

I'm not going to lie, strategy is a tough job.

Focusing on one thing means not focusing on another, and focusing on something new is always going to be a tough sell.

Make sure you’ve done your strategy homework, and always include the kernel of a good strategy in your deliverable.

Learn more about UX strategy in this 5-day email short course→

Until next week!

-Jeff Humble, Designer & Co-Founder of the Fountain Institute

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