Strategy begins with exclusion

Strategy is not a list of ambitions.

It is a set of choices about where to compete, how to win, and what not to pursue. The last part is often the most revealing.

Organisations avoid exclusion because every opportunity has an advocate. The strategy expands until it offends no one and guides nothing.

A useful strategy creates discomfort. It closes attractive paths so that resources can gather behind a smaller number of consequential ones.

If every project can claim to fit the strategy, the strategy is probably a description of the company, not a decision about its future.