Worksheet: Put the strategy on one page, then test it

This sheet gets the strategy onto one page and checks that your leaders carry it in their heads. It builds the Competent step of the check:

The strategy fits on a page and leaders retell it consistently: where we compete, how we win, what we'll do.

Part 1. The page

Fill each box in plain words. If a box needs more than three lines, the choice behind it is not made yet.

Box	What goes in it	Your words
Where we are going	The three-to-five-year aim and two or three goals with numbers
Where we compete	The customers, products, channels and regions we choose
Where we do not compete	What we have ruled out
How we win	Why a customer picks us over their next-best option
What we will do	Three to five themes, each with its first initiative
e.g. How we win		Trade customers get next-day delivery from stock nobody else carries

Part 2. The retell test

Ask each of the top five leaders, one at a time and without the page, to state the strategy in two minutes. Write down what they say. Then mark it against the page.

Leader	Date asked	Where we compete matches?	How we win matches?	What we'll do matches?	What they said instead

A mismatch is a finding about the page as much as about the leader. Fix the page first, then ask again in a month.

Done when: all five leaders, asked separately without the page, retell where you compete, how you win and what you will do.

Adapted from our own strategy-on-a-page template (PSP, 2011).