Distillations in this newsletter: STOP – Don’t begin strategy development until you have written a brief; Strategy as a form of fiction; Quick guide to using AI.
STRATEGY DISTILLED:
A monthly concoction of insight, learning and things you might have missed for anyone who works on strategy, works with strategy or just loves strategy.
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This month …
- STOP – Don’t begin strategy development until you have written a brief.
- Strategy snippets you may have missed: Stragey as a form of fiction; Quick guide to using AI.
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STOP – Don’t begin strategy development until you have written a brief
There’s a familiar energy in the room when a new strategic initiative kicks off. It’s a mix of excitement, ambition and a palpable urgency to do something. The whiteboard is clean, the team is assembled and the temptation is overwhelming to dive straight in; to start brainstorming, building and executing. The idea of pausing to write a “brief” can feel like a bureaucratic drag, a piece of administrative friction slowing down the real work. This impulse, however, is a trap. The single most critical act in any strategy process happens before the first “big idea” is ever mooted: it is the act of writing the brief. To skip it is to start a journey without a destination, or even an agreement on what your strategy is setting out to change in the first place.
The ‘Why’: The Foundational Case for the Strategy Brief
The true value of a brief is often misunderstood. It is not merely a document for others; it is also a tool for yourself. As strategist Rob Estreitinho notes, “the writing of the document is there to give its author clarity first.” The process of committing your thoughts to paper forces a level of rigour that is impossible to achieve with abstract ideas floating in your head. It compels you to move from a vague sense of a challenge to a concrete, logical articulation of its component parts and its intended benefits. You are forced to question your own assumptions, define your terms and build a coherent case before anyone else is invited to critique it. It is an act of profound self-interrogation.
Only once you have achieved this personal clarity can the brief serve its second, more recognised, purpose: aligning the team. A well-crafted brief becomes the single source of truth for everyone involved. It ensures that everyone, from C-suite to front-line teams, shares an understanding of the challenge to be addressed and the goals to be achieved. It eliminates “siloed brilliance”, where talented people produce excellent but disconnected work, pulling the organisation’s resources in different directions.
Without this alignment, the path to failure is predictable. The most common pitfalls are not mysterious; they are the direct consequence of failing to brief properly:
- Misaligned efforts lead to internal friction and contradictory outputs.
- Wasted resources are poured into ideas that are ultimately irrelevant or off-target.
- Scope creep becomes inevitable as the project’s boundaries expand without a clear definition of ‘done’.
- Evaluation becomes subjective, devolving into a battle of opinions rather than a rigorous assessment against pre-agreed objectives.
- Worst of all, you risk the most critical failure of all: tackling the wrong challenge—investing heavily in an elegant and expensive solution for a challenge that wasn’t there in the first place.
The ‘What’: The Anatomy of a Powerful Strategy Brief
A powerful brief is not a long and rambling document; it is a concise and focused set of answers to the most important questions the organisation must address before committing time, money and energy. Its core components are:
- The Challenge & The Context: What is the specific challenge we are trying to address or the opportunity we want to seize? It’s not enough to say, “we need to grow.” We must ask: Why aren’t we growing now? What has changed in the market or with our customers? Why does this matter at this exact moment?
- The Objective & Success Metrics: What is our primary goal with this work? Crucially, what does success look like in concrete, measurable terms? How will we know, unequivocally, that we have won? Defining KPIs here transforms the objective from a vague aspiration into a tangible target.
- The Audience(s): Who are we trying to influence, serve or sell to with this strategy? Be ruthlessly specific. “Everyone” is not an audience. Define the primary and secondary audiences, both internally and externally.
- The Key Stakeholders: Who needs to be involved in this process? A clear RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) model is invaluable. Who holds the final decision-making power? Who must be consulted along the way? Who simply needs to be kept in the loop?
- The Mandatories & Constraints: What are the non-negotiables? These are the absolute boundaries within which we must operate. They include budget, timeline, brand guidelines, legal considerations and technological limitations. Defining these early prevents wasted effort on ideas that are dead on arrival.
- The Deliverables: What is the tangible output of this strategic work? Is it a new marketing plan, a product roadmap, a brand repositioning document or an operational blueprint? Be clear on what will be created.
- The Key Question: This is the ultimate test of focus. If this strategy could only answer one question, what would that question be? This forces a final, crucial distillation of the brief’s purpose.
The ‘How’: From Document to Discipline
Creating a brief is not a static, one-time event. It is a dynamic and collaborative process of “scoping”. It typically follows four phases:
- Drafting for Clarity: The process must begin with a single author. One person takes responsibility for wrestling with the ‘what’ and producing the first draft. This is a necessary phase of intense, often solitary, thinking.
- Collaborative Interrogation: The draft is then circulated to the key stakeholders identified within the brief itself. This stage is not for gentle approval; it is for rigorous interrogation. Is the challenge defined correctly? Are the success metrics fair? Have we missed a critical constraint? This is where weak points are exposed and strengthened.
- Refinement and Iteration: The author refines the brief based on this feedback. This cycle of input and refinement may happen several times. The goal is not to create a document by committee, but to forge a robust consensus that reflects a shared reality.
- Agreement – from Plan to Pact: The final brief is formally agreed upon. This act is ceremonial for a reason. It transforms the document from a simple plan into a pact. It is the constitution for the project, the reference point against which all future work will be commissioned and judged, and the commitment that everyone has signed up to.
A strategy is only as strong as the brief that defines it. To treat the brief as an administrative task is to fundamentally misunderstand its power. It is a discipline of clear thinking, rigorous alignment and focused execution. To skip it is to choose to navigate without a map, a compass or a destination. It’s a choice to fail before you’ve even begun.
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Strategy snippets you may have missed
Strategy as a form of fiction
“We often think of strategy as something cold, analytical, spreadsheet-driven. But more and more, I’m convinced that strategy is fundamentally a form of fiction—a way of telling a story about the future, then organizing people and resources to make that story real.” So says Julian Bleeker in his newsletter of 5 May 2025, Warming Strategy Up.
Quick Guide to Using AI
If you are new to the practicalities of AI or have found yourself lost in the myriad of platforms and services available, Ethan Mollick has your back with this Quick Guide to Using AI.
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Goal Atlas works with leaders and teams to facilitate the development, adoption and measurement of strategy. Our process. Your people.
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If you enjoyed reading this newsletter, don’t forget to forward it to friends or colleagues who might also find it of interest.
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