Strategic Choice Cascade

What it is

A “cascade” of four or five questions that together are the best all-purpose tool for strategy development, starting with “What is our winning aspiration?”; “Where will we play?”; and “How will we win?” The power of the cascade is that it takes a systemic approach to strategy that is sharply focused on market differentiation and on connecting strategy to execution.

When to use

Any time you are creating, revising, or stress-testing the strategy of a line of business, market offering or entire business that is dominated by a strong core offering.

When not to use

For an entire organization consisting of multiple offerings or business lines that compete in different markets or have significantly different value propositions. The tool is also not useful in situations where market competition is not meaningful—e.g., for functions like IT or Finance that serve internal customers who have limited or no other options. 

Tradecraft tips

“Winning aspiration” can be defined in either qualitative terms (e.g., “be the most innovative provider of x”) or quantitative terms (e.g., “get to one billion dollars in revenue in three years”) or both. The “guts” of the cascade are in defining “Where to play” (e.g., customer selection) and “How to win” (e.g., differentiating features), which must be tightly connecting and mutually reinforcing. The fourth question (and more, if needed) are downstream execution priorities and should be customized to context as most helpful. Options include: “What should be our strategic priorities?”; “What new initiatives should we launch?: and “What strategic capabilities and assets should we invest in?; among others. 

Source

Strategic Choice Structuring was developed at Monitor Group in the early 1990s. The definitive source on this process is the book Playing to Win (2013) by Roger Martin and A.G. Lafley, with many supporting materials available online including the article “Strategic Choices Need to Be Made Simultaneously, Not Sequentially,” by Roger Martin for Harvard Business Review online, April 23, 2017.Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

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