Move guide
Run the strategy rhythm
Your report suggested a move on at least one of these three practices:
- whether strategic progress is measured;
- whether assumptions are explicit and watched;
- how strategy is reviewed.
This move guide puts a few strategic measures beside the financials and writes down the assumptions the strategy rests on. Then a quarterly review asks whether the choices are still right.
1. When it applies
Use this move guide if your report placed any of these three practices in the lowest two stages.
| Practice | Where it may sit today | Where this move guide aims |
|---|---|---|
| Whether strategic progress is measured | Lagging: "The only scoreboard is the monthly P&L, which measures the past." Basic: "Strategic KPIs were defined once, with no named owners, and quietly dropped when reporting got hard." |
Competent: "A handful of strategic measures (e.g. share, mix shift, capability milestones etc.) are reported alongside financials, each with an accountable owner." |
| Whether assumptions are explicit and watched | Lagging: "The strategy's assumptions were never written down, so nobody notices when they fail." Basic: "Assumptions exist implicitly and surface only in post-mortems." |
Competent: "The core assumptions are stated in the strategy and someone owns watching them." |
| How strategy is reviewed | Lagging: "Strategy is discussed once a year, off-site, and not again." Basic: "Reviews happen but collapse into operational and financial updates." |
Competent: "A regular rhythm reviews strategic progress separately from monthly operations." |
If all three already sit at the middle stage or higher, skip this move guide.
It runs the strategy from turning it into action. The programmes there are what the review tracks.
2. What to do
Four steps. Set them up in a month, then run them quarterly.
- Choose three leading indicators that would show the strategy working before the financials do. Give each an owner, and report them beside the profit and loss every month. The measurement worksheet does this.
- Write down the five assumptions the strategy depends on. Give each an indicator, a trigger and an owner. The assumptions worksheet does this.
- Separate the strategy review from the operating review. Hold a quarterly session that asks whether the choices are still right, not only whether you are on budget. The review-cadence worksheet sets the agenda.
- Once a year, put the whole strategy back through facing the real challenge and setting the goals and making the choices. Refresh the momentum case with the momentum calculator.
Table A below holds the measures and the assumptions on one page.
The three free worksheets do the recording:
- /worksheets/strategy/measurement for the strategic measures;
- /worksheets/strategy/assumptions for the assumptions and their triggers;
- /worksheets/strategy/review-cadence for the quarterly review.
3. What to produce
One table, plus the three worksheets above.
Table A. The strategy dashboard
| Measure or assumption | Owner (name) | Reading now | Trigger for a rethink | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Measure 1 | ||||
| Measure 2 | ||||
| Measure 3 | ||||
| Assumption 1 | ||||
| Assumption 2 |
An assumption with no trigger will be noticed only in a post-mortem.
4. A worked example
Illustrative. Written for this move guide. It describes no client.
A specialist software company sells to hospitals and aged-care operators. Its strategy is to move customers to subscriptions.
The measures.
- It chose three: the share of revenue from subscriptions, the customers lost in the year, and the new product's milestones.
- Each has an owner, and all three sit on the first page of the monthly pack.
The assumptions.
- It wrote down five. One was that hospital budgets would hold. Its trigger was two large customers delaying renewal in one quarter.
The review.
- The quarterly strategy session is now separate from the monthly operating meeting. Its first question is whether the choices are still right.
One quarter on.
- 3 measures beside the financials, each with an owner
- 5 assumptions with a trigger
- 1 strategy review held apart from operations
On a retake, all three practices could be answered at the middle stage.
What it looked like in our work
From our own work. Figures changed.
A services group reviewed its strategy at a mid-year board session. One page showed the actions agreed at the last session, each with its status, how far along it was, its owner and its next review.
| Action | Status | Owner | Next review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business measures and targets | Draft measures for every objective, presented at this session | Two named executives | Next board strategy session |
| Brand strategy | Work done, implementation begun | Two named executives | Board review of implementation |
| Entry to a second overseas market | Good progress on the entry strategy | One named executive | Next board strategy session |
| Options for a new region | Five entry options analysed, with a recommendation to hold | One named executive | This session |
| A lower-price brand | On hold, on the board's guidance | None | On hold |
| Franchise model | Under development | One named executive | Next board strategy session |
| Operating model | Approach and budget set, project begun | Three named executives | Next board strategy session |
| Financial analysis | Done | One named executive | This session |
Every action had an owner and a next review, except the one on hold.
Forecast against plan, explained
Illustrative.
Explain the gap between the year-end forecast and the plan in two parts. One part is the business as usual. The other is the projects. Each owner can then see which part is theirs.
- Profit in the plan$1000k
- Margin−$60k
- Volume+$40k
- Other business as usual−$10k
- Last year's projects+$50k
- This year's projects+$80k
- Other initiatives−$20k
- Year-end forecast$1080k
5. Effort and dependencies
- Head of strategyRuns the rhythm and keeps the dashboard.
- Measure and assumption ownersEach reports one reading and watches one trigger.
- Leadership teamHolds the quarterly review and asks whether the choices still stand.
What you need
- The action programmes from turning it into action.
- The monthly management pack, with room on its first page.
How long
- A month to set up. Then quarterly, with a fuller review each year.
What gets in the way. We have seen these in our own work:
- Measures "to be set". A financial services business agreed its outcomes in two planning rounds in a row, with the measures still "to be set".
- Assumptions with no owner. An asset finance business stated its market-growth and mix assumptions on the page. Nobody was named to watch them.
- What good looked like. A services group's mid-year check tested whether the choices were still right, and ran downside scenarios. This move guide builds the same rhythm.
6. How will you know it worked?
The test is what the quarterly review spends its time on. Retake the check after the second quarterly review. Each of these should be true when you answer:
| Practice | You can answer Competent when | A document alone does not count if |
|---|---|---|
| Whether strategic progress is measured | A handful of strategic measures are reported beside the financials, each with an owner. | The measures were defined once and have not been reported since. |
| Whether assumptions are explicit and watched | The core assumptions are written in the strategy, and someone owns watching them. | The assumptions are listed, but no one is named against them. |
| How strategy is reviewed | A regular review of strategic progress runs apart from the monthly operating meeting. | The review exists, but it spends its time on the budget. |
The worked example is illustrative.
Think we've used your work without proper credit? Tell us and we'll fix it.