You don't need big up-front strategy but you need to be strategic

Big up front strategy is tedious and time consuming. There's endless gathering of data, synthesis, and projection forward. Sometimes we aim to pre-empt the future as if to be in control of what is going to happen. Costs can be projected to future assuming our business runs "as-is". We can even control the cost as those decisions happen inside the company. When it comes to what customers want and where they choose to spend their money is not for us to control. We can create educated hunches, but we cannot control how our customers will behave in the future. Strategic certainty don't exists therefore. More data gathering, analysis and strategising will not help after a certain?threshold.

A designer has said that "we (designers) build to think". That is: the act of building helps us think better. We choose not to overdo analysis. We discover the right design. Our design goal can?be the strategy.?

Making progress and learning?

The design process is iterative. There are phases and activities such as working with customers and gathering knowledge. There is analysis of patterns. We make prototypes of possible solutions to problems we've observed. We test the prototypes.

There can be multiple prototypes. Many prototypes will not work well. None of the artefacts will be pretty or fully right initially. We gather feedback and understand the needs of customers better. We incorporate learnings and try to build better prototypes. The second round will be better but hardly ever even close to perfect. We test the design again and learn something new again about the world and the preferences of customers. Every discussion and prototype is a stepping stone toward better.

Another designer quote is: "We need to bad ideas too to find great ideas". I would also add that you need the basis of work done in a domain to have a foundation upon which to build with many good ideas. I believe there is no single great?heureka-moment in strategising.??

The heart of strategy?

Strategy is not a plan. The simplest way to?to?get to the heart of strategy is to use 2 out of the 5 questions from the playing to win –model (by Roger L Martin). They are "where will you play?" and "how will you win?". Those questions cut to the heart of competitive advantage. That is what makes you different and better than your competition.??

You can create a good strategy with having the lowest cost in operations. If you are not aiming at that, then you have to differentiate. You have to be meaningfully different than the other choices that the customers have. You have to be better in some way that the customers appreciate. You have to put in extra effort in a selected way. And to create competitive separation and a good gap to your rivals, you have to deliberately choose where you outperform. Strategy is choice.?

Refine your choice of differentiation over time.?

3 questions to see if you are making strategic progress?

The important bit in continuous development is gradual progress. With the design mindset, we deliberately build low-cost versions of the big idea. This time the big idea is not a service or artefact. This time we build progressive prototypes of the strategy.??

Here are the questions you can ask yourself to see if you are making strategic progress?

1. Are you on journey to a position where others cannot follow you? A strategic position is such that other companies either are unable or unwilling to follow. If you are taking a path of differentiation, then that path should take you somewhere where your competitors are simply unable to follow.?

2. Are you finding unique and actionable insights about the customers and the market? Learning is the basis for creating unique insight of customers and market. Take this as leading indicator to being able to create new kinds of differentiation.?

3. Are you adding to your differentiation? Take your last quarter. Or take the last year and ask, have we become more unique and different compared to the other choices on the market? With a bit more perspective in time you should be able to see you own path that you've been creating. Every month and quarter should add to differentiation.?