The Order: Vision, Mission, Goals, Strategies, Objectives, Tactics

Late 2024 Update to this post: Before I get into this really long article, I have to share this book with you. It's called "No Bullsh*t Strategy : A Founder’s Guide to Gaining Competitive Advantage with a Strategy That Actually Works" by Alex M.H. Smith . Awesome. The whole book is probably shorter than my article and likely more valuable. Anyway... to our story...

Warning. This is about to be a long article. So instead, here's the true tl;dr (too long; didn't read) version: There's something you want to do in the world because you think it has value and you have a better way of doing it than anyone or better yet, a different way to satisfy some need. (This is your vision/mission/strategy all in one.) You have some specific means to accomplish these things. (These are your goals/objectives/tactics.) There. You're done. You don't have to go further. Or you can read Alex Smith's posts and his wonderfully short book on strategy.

So. You really want the full version? OK then...

Why anyone would want to re-hash this topic is a fair question. It came out of a discussion I had with some relatively junior product managers who came to Product, as is often the case, from other specialties. So many management books and courses... So many definitions of the same things. So many years of struggle. And yet... we still have differing definitions, suggestions, and apparently confusion about what seem to be the basics for high level strategy and associated concepts. You can easily search for some of these key words and find other authors with completely opposite viewpoints of each other. But not always explanations as to why. I, perhaps foolishly, think I might understand where some of the confusion has come into play. And since I've got what I think might be a path through this, I'm going to give it a shot...

There's a really long writeup coming, but here's the short version...

Short Version

The Starting Point: There's confusion among some Product Managers as to where to start when it comes to formulating goals, strategy, and so on. I've become more aware of this as I've mentored more junior product folks or seen common questions on a variety of product oriented forums. Why the confusion? I believe it's partly due to at least three core issues.

1. There's longstanding ambiguity among some terms. (E.g., goal vs. objective vs. tactic, and just what constitutes strategy.)
2. Some modern frameworks conflate issues that used to be more serial in nature. For example: Agile, when it takes the form of Scrum - to some degree - stuffs "Product," and "Project" management into one tight funnel. Perhaps Agile in general and Scrum in particular are generally goodness, but has nonetheless led to some challenges in planning.
3. There's a lack of understanding as to which level at which we're operating; corporate or business unit or product level. And this is possibly a non-trivial cause of the confusion.

So Here's the Thesis: Strategic and Tactical planning has different meanings at different levels within an organization. Sometimes this may be subtle. Other times, there's clear differentiation of scope. Lack of clarity in this regard is what can cause questions about the flow from Vision through Execution. The problem with several papers, blogs or books I've reviewed on these topics is that most often seem to fail - for the most part - to distinguish among varying levels of thought. And as I've encountered a variety of new Product Managers or come across discussions in various Product forums, it's become clear to me that at least some are struggling as to where to start. Where are they in the process? They've asked... "What should I do here?" and "What's next?" (Which is what led to this write-up in the first place.)

Why This Matters: Our collective goal is to build value in some form or another. For most organizations, this includes value for customers, profit for shareholders, and possibly a variety of values for other marketplace stakeholders. Not-for-profits, (and government), will have their own success criteria in terms of value. Figuring out the correct activities down this path of value creation is critical for both effectiveness and efficiency.

The Answer: The following is the correct order...

Corporate Level

• Corporate Vision
• Corporate Mission
• Corporate Values (Optional and not necessarily ordinal in this list)
• Corporate Strategy

Business Unit or Product Level (Possibly both)

• Goals - Business Unit - or Product Level
• Strategy - Business Unit - or Product Level
• Objectives - Business Unit - or Product Level
• Tactics - Business Unit - or Product Level
• Ancillary Support Strategies: Marketing, Communications, Platform, Etc.

When a Product lead or team is working on their various artifacts; strategy documents, roadmaps, etc., this is the order in which they should travel the path. That's it. Done. You Can Accept this or Not. But you can Stop Reading Now if you like. That was the point. If there was any confusion, I hope that helped. Thank you for stopping by.

(Actually, there is a super concise description of strategy. It's just this: There's some value of some sort we want to create and there's a list of stuff we have to do to create it and other stuff we should ignore. But that's probably not quite satisfyingly clear enough for some folks new to trying to come up with something a bit more comprehensive. ) So here we go...

Extensive / In Depth Arguments

Following is a longer writeup on this topic. You don't need to keep reading if you just accept the above list as a reasonable framework.

Again... Why Did I Bother?

• This started as an answer to just one or two people who asked me some questions. Which led to more discussion. Which led to some research. Which led to trying to think this out a bit more and justify my approach and my position.

Some Background

A lot of the material I'm about to present is likely familiar. But PM training ranges from formal down to nothing. Since "Product" seems an increasingly hot ticket lately, some people target it as a career, whereas others may transition from adjacent specialties. As a result, knowledge and skills are all over the place.

The first question is: "Does the order of Vision, Mission, etc., even matter as long as we do all the steps?" The answer is, "Maybe not." We all get to choose how we're going to dive into our marketplaces. But if we think frameworks can be generally useful, (and they are), then it makes sense to be clear about what's in them and how they can be used to help us.

Does Vision have to come before Mission? Or the other way? Can a company even have an overarching Strategy before having Goals or Objectives? These are fair questions, because the answer is probably something like, "Maybe not." Or "Who cares?" After all, we all know that the best of plans rarely survive actual battles. We've even invented Agile and Lean to avoid wrong early choices for longer timeframes. Still, for all the theory, we function in the real world. And while it may be true that "all who wander are not lost," that doesn't work quite as well for corporate governance; whether you're a sole proprietor or multibillion corp.

We're moving and changing all the time, bouncing off guard rails as we head down the road, and adapting as we go, etc. etc. But head down the road toward what? Well, that's supposedly what things like Vision and Mission are supposed to help us answer. Still, does it really matter if our Vision and Mission are slightly conflated? Or if we're unclear on what was a Strategy vs. a Tactic as long as something got done? If I'm doing Agile, should my organizing principle at the Scrum level be Theme or Epic or both? And aren't Epics and Roadmaps kind of just like old fashioned Waterfall Work Breakdown structures anyway? After all, even roadmaps seem a bit out of vogue to some these days. And who doesn't want to be up on the coolest management trend? Does it matter how I organize this at all as long as I'm building customer value? Maybe not. But if we're really trying for consistent and ongoing success, the flow probably does matter.

The real question is maybe do you prefer to be lucky or smart? Given a choice, I'd opt for both.

So Who Really Cares About the Order of Things - Vision or Mission?

I'm obviously in the camp that believes these things matter. There may be some minor differences between a startup and long established firms, but the only pertinent difference is who is doing the work and at what level; not whether or not it should be done. If you're a startup that's all the way into Agile/Scrum, think of it like this... Technically speaking, the outward facing Product Manager and the more inward facing Product Owner should be two different people. But more often in small organizations they're the same person performing what really should be thought of as two different roles. So that person should try hard to work as though these really are different roles. And that can be a challenge.

The point is that the same is true for the Strategy question(s). As a Product person, (for example), you may float across multiple zones in your company, horizontal and vertical. Or you may have a very self-contained role. So the guidelines for how strategy planning can happen and on what level depends on organizational structure. The path through all of this is to make sure to assess that situation from the perspective of hierarchy and perhaps roles. Even if just one person is doing all the work.

Why So Much Confusion over Strategy Planning Methodology?

Possibly because there are different levels when it comes to the concept of Strategy. Or at least, this is where I've perceived there to be some confusion. We can have an overarching Corporate strategy, a Business Unit strategy and a Product strategy. (Which could be for a simple product, or a whole Platform.) They should be aligned of course, but they are at different levels of planning. Then we have what might be thought of as ancillary supporting components, such as Marketing/Sales or Communications strategies that may also exist at different levels.

So Let's Re-visit the Ordered List Here

This is the somewhat contentious part. Some will argue "no, you can't put strategy before a goal or objective," where others would argue the opposite. The same is true for Vision and Mission statements. I'm going to just put a stick in the ground with the following order, and then explain why. The goal here is to come out of this with some clarity as to what steps, in what order, are most likely to get us consistently to successful outcomes. Here's the list again...

Corporate Level

• Corporate Vision
• Corporate Mission
• Corporate Values (Optional and not necessarily ordinal in this list)
• Corporate Strategy

(For this level, corporate vision and mission really are goals of a sort. And they can lead of a very high level overarching strategy.)

Business Unit or Product Level (Possibly both)

• Goals - Business Unit - or Product Level
• Strategy - Business Unit - or Product Level
• Objectives - Business Unit - or Product Level
• Tactics - Business Unit - or Product Level
• Ancillary Support Strategies: Marketing, Communications, Platform, Etc.

The takeaway is you need to 'right fit' your planning model for your organization and market. Our collective problem has been confusion and contention as to what comes first and why. All I'm really saying is, "Just pick one and go." Whatever you do, be clear across your organization.

The Definition Thing

You can find definitions for the following items anywhere, but let's run the drill anyway just to level set as to what these things are.

Corporate Vision

What is it? The Vision expresses the future state of what you want to be. What is it you want to become? (Or some might say Achieve.) It offers a long term path. It is - or should be - the North Star for all things that follow. What you want to be can include the high level problem your trying to solve. It's your inspiration. It answers the questions: "What or where do you want to be one day? In what direction should be going?" The result is ideally inspirational. This vision - if done well - should rarely change even over long periods of time. Again, it's about "someday."

Do you need this? Maybe you can progress with simple goals and objectives. The trouble emerges when you run into challenges with lower order choices. How do you determine direction? What's your so-called "North Star?" Without some higher order overarching story and direction, you're going to find yourself somewhat lost. You have no criteria for choice. Any progress you make is more likely due to past momentum, luck, or leadership intuition. And those three things, while perhaps amazing and even somewhat magical, aren't necessarily by design. So maybe not consistently repeatable over time.

About the Order... Vision first or Mission first. We'll see arguments on both sides of this. But consider... if Mission is more about what you're doing now and intend to do soon, (as we'll cover in a moment), then how or why could that possibly come before what it is you aspire to become long term?

Corporate Mission

What is it? The mission statement is about your high level purpose. What are you doing now and what's your intent over the next handful of years. The point is that it's about what you're doing and for whom and what the benefits may be. It answers the questions: "What are you doing and what do you intend to do near term; and how does this differentiate you, if at all? Where should you focus your attention?" The result is ideally directional. This mission - even if done well - may occasionally change over long periods of time. Generally, it's been said that Mission might be more about who, and how. It's what you do every day.

The Mission clarifies what you're doing and for whom and perhaps how. It's going to drive overall strategy, as well as inform more specific goals and objectives. The things you do, from actual behavior to messaging, should align with your Mission. (And your Vision of course.) Otherwise, what are you? What is your brand anyway? One problem with the whole "Which comes first, Vision or Mission" thing is possibly due to the definition being somewhat dual purpose. That is, long ago, someone somewhere saddled mission with the ideas of both "purpose" and "what you're doing now." That's a problem. If it was just purpose alone, maybe it could be argued it would come before vision. But when you add in what you're doing, that's more of an activity.

Importantly, your Mission also should help you decide what you should not be doing. That is, while vision might be somewhat abstract when thinking about alignment of strategy, goals, objectives and tactics, mission should not be. Any of the lower order activities down to the tactical level should be able to be clearly aligned with mission. If not, then something is likely wrong; either the Mission or what you're doing.

Vision vs Mission Quick Interrupt...

So again... just to try to be clear... Vision is about what you want to be, over a long period of time. The Mission is about purpose, but even more so about the now and what you're doing. So ideally you can now see why I suggest the order goes Vision and then Mission. (For those of you who chose to stick with Mission as purpose alone, well... that's fine. Put it where you want. I can't personally seem to find clear consensus on this among the guru crowd. By all means, comment and correct me if you believe otherwise.)

Can you Combine Vision and Mission Statements

Sure. You can do anything you want. A lot of companies do combine them. Doesn't matter. I'm suggesting the correct order for the ideas, but if the concepts are conflated, fine. The idea is to make sure you cover the important issues at hand. Because the whole point is for upcoming sub-components to be aligned with the Vision / Mission ideas, however they happen to be expressed. Otherwise, how can judgements be made regarding goals, strategies, etc. in terms of if they're taking you where you want to go?

Vision vs Mission: Just a couple examples

These are easy to find. Again, note that many do craft these as one. Just do some searches for your favorite companies.

Tesla

Tesla has actually been messing with their statements a bit. The following is from a 2011 presentation as well as a CEO blog...

Vision: Create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s transition to electric vehicles

Mission statement:?to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass-market electric cars to market as soon as possible.

And yet on their about section, they just list mission: Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

Amazon

Vision: to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.

Mission: We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection, and the utmost convenience.

Corporate Values

Publishing your corporate Values is optional. You have them of course, whether you publish them or not. They're implied by your behavior anyway since your behavior will scream your values more so than anything you say. There is also an argument for leaving them out. In today's politically charged environment, if you publish them, but leave out something that others may feel is critical, they may say, "Sure, you care about the environment, but what about, this, that, and the other thing." So, your call.

The thing about values is they can be a little tricky. If you look at the values - for example - of a firm like Habitat for Humanity, or Patagonia, your firm may find it hard to signal quite as much virtue if you happen to make... I don't know... sugary sodas, or crappy little plastic party favors people toss out as soon as they can, etc. Still, between the lofty values of a Research Hospital versus a Sugary Snack Maker, there's a whole lot of ground to cover.

What are Corporate Values? Values are about your culture. They define how you want to behave both with your own team and external stakeholders. They express your beliefs, either explicitly or by proxy through your stated behavioral imperatives. Having clear values can help answer the questions: "Is what I'm doing in alignment with how we want to behave in the world?" So if the Vision is typically very long term, (potentially decades), and Mission includes both purpose and what you're doing somewhere from right now through five years or so, how long do we hold our values? The answer is - ideally - forever. Yes, you may tweak these every now and again as new things come. up. But really, if you're flip-flopping your core values around a lot, chances are you have other issues.

General Corporate Strategy

Putting Strategy before a goal seems to violate the popular GSOT model. (Goals, Strategies, Objectives, Tactics.) Look here , there's even tons of pretty pictures for this.

Nevertheless, Strategy is generally about the approach you're going to take to achieve your goal.

Corporate Strategy, (or Business Strategy), is about focus on whom you are servicing and what you're trying to deliver. It's about the general marketplace. And practically by definition, includes the idea of resource allocation. (In this case, at least at a very high level.) This is where things can and do start to get confusing. Generally, you'll see Goals or Objectives before Strategy. And this makes sense at Business Unit and Product levels. But not necessarily at a corporate level. At the Corporate level it's fine and sensible to have a general strategy because the Vision and Mission already serve as your high level goals or objectives, even if this may be at an abstract level. And while the overarching corporate level strategy may change from time to time, it can still remain somewhat constant, whereas the bits and pieces that will follow may pivot more frequently in an attempt to hit specific targets. This is where things maybe get all confusing. At the next business level, you ask, "How can I have a strategy before my goal?" And the answer is, "But you do have a goal. It's just expressed at the corporate level in the form of vision/mission."

Example:

Here's a made up example for a company that provides equipment for firefighters. This could be a very high level corporate strategy alone, lacking the goals / objectives and detailed strategy and tactics needed to make just about anything. But it's a perfectly fine high level directional corporate strategy. It does offer direction on what to do and maybe it feels a bit like a goal given there's a time constraint; but it's really high level. It's scoping out a high level business category; it's not deeply useful from an operational perspective.

• Become an industry leader in urgent and emergency thermal imaging products in terms of brand awareness/share of voice, and sales volume within 5 years. We will begin with firefighting as an initial vertical market.

Goals - Business Unit/Product

Now that we've reached the Business Unit or Product level, here's where goals become primary. We often hear "goals and objectives" together, but right now, we're intentionally trying to thread some needles. We're trying for precision in language and approach.

By the way, it's around here that a Product Roadmap might get put into place. But this writeup is already tragically long. So Roadmapping will have to stay as a separate topic. If you think about it, product roadmapping is essentially just a pretty picture of your high level goals as they align to the even higher level Corporate Vision/Mission/Strategy.

At a larger company, you may have higher level overall Goals, etc. and then have more at a Product level. The point is, we're past high level overarching Corporate concerns here, and we're getting into the weeds of actually getting things done now. We're going Operational, so it's time to get gritty.

Goals are still the fairly general outcomes we seek, even if they're clearly quantified by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as well as time bound. Though they're potentially longer time frames of quarters or years, some are on much shorter time frames. The "time bound" thing can get a little dicey in modern Project Management given Agile methods and fuzziness of Product Roadmapping, which should be intentionally general in terms of time frames. Still, you should try. While there should probably be a new category called "Aspirational Fiction" for Product Roadmapping, that's a whole separate topic. As to what timeframe a goal should be? Some suggest it's a few years or more. But in a startup culture a few months might seem like a long time. Take your pick according to your industry and lead times. Building a power plant with brand new technologies? You're probably counting in months or maybe years. A new blog for the latest crypto trend? Hours or days maybe. In any case, the Goals still are more about the "what" and not the "how."

In any case, we're already in trouble again in the definition department. The words "goals" and "objectives" are quite similar. Depending on which dictionary you choose, these are all but synonymous. And you will hear the term SMART goals a lot. (Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic/relevant, and time-sensitive.) And yes, you can use SMART goals here, though I'm suggesting SMART goals, (even though they've got the word 'goals' in the title), really belong over objectives. A goal is somewhat overarching, e.g., increase customer loyalty. Whereas objectives are more concrete. They might include "improve customer satisfaction scores to 90% over the next 3 months," and "Decrease customer complaints by 10% within the next 2 months," etc.

You can easily search and find write-ups similar to this one that define goals as specific, detailed outcomes and others that say they're still more intangible. I'm suggesting that goals should be defined at a somewhat high directional level, but still have KPIs if at all possible. Apparently, there's some ambiguity in the words goals vs. objectives and there's no Master Product Management Council that can force a consensus. So just pick what word you're going to use for this level; I say it's Goal. And that Goals, (even if defined with specific numbers), are still fairly general as compared to Objectives.

Again, there are those out there who argue goals continue to be a high level type of thing that are only intangible. That is, you don't need the SMART concept at this level. Or numbers. Or dates. They would save that for Objectives. I'd argue this is wrong. Remember, we're at the business unit or product level now and we're going to form an attack strategy based on these goals. So we need some clarity of focus now. It is conceivable that some goals may be challenging to quantify. But that should be rare.

Business Unit/Product Goal Examples:

• Increase profit margin by X%
• Achieve market share of X%
• Increase Customer Satisfaction by X%
• Have our new thermal imaging products for firefighting become a category leader in sales volume by launch plus 3 years.

Strategy - Business Unit/Product

Strategy at this level is a a more specific . These are the choices you make about resource allocation to achieve goals and objectives. It's about how you're going to compete in a market.

Note: So a difference between goals and strategies is that goals are the destination and strategy is how you're going to reach it.

This is the level at which you can think more deeply about Porter's Five Forces , PESTLE and so on, if you haven't been using them already. (Yes, you can use tools at any level you'd like and they work fine a a corporate level; but these are probably most useful here when you're trying to find specific programs that might take you towards your goal.) Is your competitive analysis complete? Do your radar charts of competitive features show any holes? Maybe something screams out you need a pricing strategy? Or maybe a differentiation strategy? Both? Something else? Something related to your own costs to fix pricing? What about non-functional type approaches such as customer service? What about customization or localization?

Your goals should be able to inform your strategic approach to a great degree. That's why you made them first.

Let's say you're a brand that wants to serve customers better with replacement parts for your product. You're going to get into Direct to Consumer (DTC) sales for these SKUs, (Stock Keeping Units.) You've decided this won't piss off your channel partners - too much - as you're not selling the more profitable core products, just the customer service parts for really old products they don't even want to service anymore. You determine your strategy is to build omni-channel online stores. (You may be resource constrained though... so you can't afford good content tools to build out both custom stores and an Amazon presence, etc. Maybe you want to have a customer service kiosk in some metaverse somewhere. But perhaps that can wait. A little while. Maybe.) Perhaps your long term dream is to just sell or allow downloads of plan files for home 3D printers to make these parts. But for now, you've got to manufacture, inventory, sell and ship.

So we end up with a Strategy: Create a basic DTC shopping experience for replacement parts for items no longer for sale by channel partners. Our channel partners may be a little nervous to see brand out there selling direct, but then again... it's just replacement parts. (For now.) Besides, Sales says you're going to lose this or that customer - or at least some preferential shelf positioning - in retaliation if you start selling direct right now. But that's a whole other issue. Which may or may not be true. Let's focus back on where we are.

The challenge now is you likely need some research into your strategic approach as there's often more than one way to achieve goals. If your specific goal was something like, "Increase gross sales by 10% within next quarter," there's a lot of ways to get to that. Are you going to focus on new customers or upselling/cross selling current customers? Are you going to use existing products? Upgraded products? New products? Or maybe focus on your conversion funnel for existing non-customers who were solid qualified prospects? Where's your ANCRA focus? (Attract, Nurture, Convert, Retain or Advocate.)

Examples:

• In support of building market share, build top of conversion funnel awareness starting with industry leading Share or Voice for our new firefighter thermal imaging products through earned, owned, and paid media, along with direct sales to large customers; with an emphasis on owned and earned media.

Objectives - Business Unit/Product

Objectives are clearly measurable results that align with your Strategy and Goals. They are specific targets, (perhaps milestones), as to values that you want to occur within a specified timeframe. They are the details that craft more precision into the "how" of achieving the goals. They are sub-components of goals. There may be several required to reach a goal. They will inform the specific Tactics you might use to achieve your Objectives, which will thence roll up into your Goals in order to achieve them in turn. Some say the Objectives are actual detailed things you need to accomplish and will feed your tactical approaches. This is arguable. Some might say Objectives already imply imply actions, but really, that's what tactics are for. In any case, Objectives should be about target outcomes that support goals, not just outputs. Though again, they can arguably include a bit more detail about what you need to do.

Examples:

• We will sell 600 units, spread across our three product levels. We will do so starting 1QYYYY and ramp up from 20 units the first month to 50 units/month and then up to 100/month. We will do this though industry trade press awareness as marketing 'air cover' for direct marketing and sales to high volume target customers. This should be a realistic target for year one to achieve trajectory towards our goals.
• Reduce the response time for customer service problems to under 60 minutes by end of 2Q.
• Towards our goal of increasing customer satisfaction by 10% based on standard survey, achieve the following objectives:
• Decrease phone in customer service positive outcome problem resolution time by 10% in time-spent duration and 20% in overall time period handled by end of 2Q.
• Synchronize current customer service feedback information into website knowledge base by end of March.

This is where a framework like Objectives and Key Results (OKRs.) can come in. Or using SMART goals. Or both. Arguments about which is better or how to align both is a wholly separate topic. Research OKRs vs. SMART separately . It really doesn't matter. Pick one. Or something else. But this is the level at which these activities occur. (And yes, the model for SMART is called SMART goals, but really... my opinion here... these are "Objectives" in the hierarchy. In fact, this framework is discussed in Management by Objectives (MBO) by Peter Drucker so... well... whatever.)

Once again, note that there are those out there who suggest otherwise. They believe that goals are less fuzzy, and it's only at the Objective level that you get a lot more specific. The reason I'm suggesting otherwise has to do with hierarchy and to achieve clarity around managing specific programs. It's not hard to see how achievement of a goal might require multiple activities. (And I think it makes sense to call these Objectives.) And each Objective might in turn suggest multiple tactics or whole programs around achieving particular Objective targets. If we don't do it like this, we just get into an ever more hazy confusion about definitions. Looking from top to bottom, "What are we trying to do and what are the steps to do it," and if looking from bottom to top, "These are the activities that will roll up from tactics, to objectives to goals, that achieve our strategies taking us towards our vision."

I've seen write-ups that refer to goals as high level with objectives being specific, but where the author than outright says things like use the SMART goal setting method for tactics. That's fine. It's kind of what I'm saying here. But when I've read these blogs or chapters, it's hard to tell which is it that's specific then? It's all gotten very jumbled up. And unnecessarily so. If an author or consultant wants to suggest that goals remain intangible and only objectives get KPI specific, than fine. But at the very least they should clarify the oddity that they sometimes refer to SMART goals. The SMART goals framework was led by George Doran in 1981. Though he sadly left things open in terms of trying to close out the Goals vs. Objectives debate. In fact, he said it really doesn't matter how we define goals vs objectives. And we should stop wasting time on it. (Ooops, too late. My fault. Sorry. I do think it's important.) The main takeaway from what he said is "Just pick one."

Tactics - Business Unit/Product

Tactics are the specific activities used to pursue your objectives. This is exactly what you're going to actually do in the marketplace.

Examples:

• To build awareness of our new industry leading thermal imaging products in the fire/rescue marketplace, engage with both trade and influencers via targeted public relations and demo product deployment. Deploy direct salesperson(s) to industry trade shows
• Through use of lead gen, use direct messaging to target lists of buyers and influencers, using split testing on messaging strategies starting with lower assessed value prospects.
• Create SKUs for product on our own DTC eCommerce site as well as get products into top industry catalogs.
• Form partnerships with 3 major prospects to deploy demo units for free in return for rights to publish use case / white paper stories.

Ancillary Strategic Initiatives

So if Strategy is generally about the approach you're going to take to achieve your goal, where do we put things like Marketing or Communications Strategies? It seems like they can just sit next to whatever level in the corporate hierarchy they belong. They can exist at any level. And while such documents are often labeled "Strategy," as a practical matter, (possibly excepting high level brand issues), they're frequently at a more tactical level.

Marketing Strategy

Due to the ridiculous length of this article already, I'm not going to get into the debate as to what this should be. Suffice it to say that this plan itself is potentially very different on a per organization basis. For some, the "Marketing Strategy" may be inclusive of most or all of the issues discussed here. For these folks, Marketing Strategy will be about the market writ large. For others, (most perhaps), it's more specific to the marketing function, and might include things like the Messaging / Communications Strategy, Advertising, Sales, and similar functions.

Communications Strategy

Similar to Marketing Strategy, this plan may live in multiple places. It likely includes elements of other strategic planning efforts. But it's clearly focused on how your organization intends to communicate effectively with its various stakeholders. And it should of course do so in such a way as to achieve organizational objectives, strategies, goals, mission, vision. The individual line items in a Communications Strategy, (or the whole thing), are arguably tactics in support of these higher level elements. Again, the possible exception being an overarching Brand story with associated style guides.

Platform Strategy

When it comes to considering products involving whole platforms and ecosystems of multiple user / stakeholder types, all the same things already discussed will apply. You will just have more swim lanes on the roadmap. You basically have to run the exercises from Goals on down on a per stakeholder basis. It's also possible, (even likely), that if you're executing a Platform strategy, then it's not going to be a separate thing at all. It will likely be at least at the corporate strategy level.

So That's It?

That was more that quite enough, don't you think? As mentioned at the outset, the motivation for me to write this up was based on some discussions I'd had and some write-ups I've seen that simply didn't seem to answer the basic questions... Where do I start? What are the steps? Or rather, you can find plenty of such write-ups, but few that wholly cleared up the ambiguity - at least for me - among all of these activities.

If you think I've missed something or I've just gotten anything fundamentally wrong, please let me know.