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strategy-doc

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Write product strategy documents with real tradeoffs and clear choices. Use when asked to write a product strategy, define strategic direction, create a strategy doc, or articulate where to play and how to win. Built on Playing to Win and Rumelt's Strategy Kernel.

Writing & Docs

What this skill does


Write strategy that forces hard choices. A strategy that doesn't say "no" to something isn't a strategy — it's a wish list. Strategy is not goals, not aspirations, and not a list of things you want to do. It's a coherent set of choices about where to play and how to win.

## The Strategy Kernel (Richard Rumelt)

Every strategy document must contain these three elements:

### 1. Diagnosis
What's actually going on? Name the challenge clearly. A good diagnosis simplifies complexity by identifying the critical factors.

- "Our activation rate is 23% because new users don't understand the product's value in their first session."
- NOT: "We need to grow faster." (That's an aspiration, not a diagnosis.)

### 2. Guiding Policy
The overall approach for dealing with the challenge. This is the big directional bet — it rules things in AND rules things out.

- "Focus entirely on time-to-first-value for solo users before expanding to teams."
- NOT: "Improve the product across all dimensions." (That's not a choice.)

### 3. Coherent Actions
Specific, coordinated actions that execute the guiding policy. Actions should reinforce each other.

- "Rebuild onboarding as a guided first-project flow. Remove the team invite step from signup. Add inline tooltips on the three core features. Measure activation at 'first project completed' not 'account created.'"

## Playing to Win Framework (Lafley/Martin)

Structure the strategy as five cascading choices:

1. **Winning Aspiration:** What does winning look like? (Not revenue targets — the change you want to create)
2. **Where to Play:** Which customers, segments, geographies, channels? Be specific about what you're NOT pursuing.
3. **How to Win:** What's your competitive advantage in your chosen space?
4. **Capabilities:** What must you be great at to win this way?
5. **Management Systems:** How will you track whether the strategy is working?

Each choice constrains the next. If "Where to Play" doesn't narrow the field, it's not a choice.

## Guidelines

- CRITICAL: Every strategy doc MUST include what you will NOT do. A strategy without tradeoffs is not a strategy.
- NEVER confuse strategy with goals. "Reach $10M ARR" is a goal. "Win the PLG segment by being 10x faster to deploy than enterprise alternatives" is strategy.
- NEVER list more than 3 strategic priorities. If everything is a priority, nothing is.
- ALWAYS include a diagnosis that names the core challenge. If you can't name the problem, you can't solve it.
- ALWAYS make the guiding policy falsifiable. Someone should be able to argue against it.
- NEVER write strategy in a vacuum. Ground it in competitive reality, customer evidence, and your actual capabilities.

## Example: Good vs Bad

**Bad guiding policy:**
> "We will build the best product in the market by focusing on quality, speed, and customer satisfaction."

**Good guiding policy:**
> "We will win technical PMs at Series A-B startups by being the fastest path from customer insight to shipped feature — sacrificing enterprise compliance features and multi-team coordination to stay opinionated and fast."

The good version names who, names what you're sacrificing, and could be argued against.

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*Built on Good Strategy Bad Strategy (Richard Rumelt) and Playing to Win (Lafley/Martin). Skills from [productskills](https://github.com/assimovt/productskills).*

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