I am enjoying the perspectives shared in this thread. My previous post was about multi-channel strategy and interaction design. There appears to be an appetite for describing business unit strategy more broadly, so I thought I'd wade in again.
I worked for many years at one of the world leading strategy consulting companies with strong ties to Harvard Business School. We summarized business unit strategy as four strategic choices: 1. What are our goals and aspirations? 2. Where will we play? 3. How will we win? 4. How will we organize to win? There are many questions under each of these four topics, and the sub-questions need to be adapted to the context. In an attempt to be (somewhat) concise, I'll provide some general examples: 1. *Goals and Aspirations* 1. What do we hope to accomplish? 2. How will we know if / when we have succeeded? 2. *Where to Play*: 1. What products and services will we offer? 2. Who will we offer them to? (segmentation) 3. *How to Win*: 1. Who are we competing against and what will our competitive advantage(s) be? 2. What do we want to convey to different parts of the market? (value proposition, branding and messaging, pricing) 3. How will we interact with and influence our prospects and customers? (marketing, sales, service, channels, customer experience) 4. *Organizing to Win*: 1. What capabilities do we need? (people, processes, technology) 2. How will what metrics will we use to monitor our progress? 3. How will we adapt our plans based on our learning over time? As this was about making choices, it was as important to describe what not to do as what to do, to avoid what some have called the "peanut butter problem" (failing by spreading resources too thinly). On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Christina Wodtke <[email protected]>wrote: > Peterme makes some excellent points worth considering about the nature of > strategy. Strategy happens over and over again, at multiple points in the > work of a comapny. You have a company strategy, a business strategy, a > product strategy and a design strategy. As Barbara said "Strategy is the > plan for how to compete"; you could even simplify that to "Strategy is the > plan for how to" since we have strategies for how to lose weight, for how > to > get a new job, etc. > > A design needs to both understand the strategies created by the business > owners as context and create strategies to realize those goals. > > For an example, a startup might have the goal of creating a sufficiently > large data asset to be aquired by google, or monetize directly. Their > strategy could be to build a wikipedia-esque community commited to building > up this asset. The product strategy might be to create a place that > rewards > individual efforts (i.e. digg over wikipedia) and the design strategy might > be to create rich profiles and a named level reputation system that follows > uses around. > > The first strategy might be created by the senior executives, the second by > the executives and the product maanger, and the last by the product manager > and the designer... all cocreated as the "how to" gets passed to the next > team member. > > > On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 8:39 PM, Peter Merholz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I will chime in and say that Andrew Otwell's comments are probably the > most > > appropriate for the 2nd Ed of "D4I", given the primer-like nature of the > > book. > > > > I think it might be harmful to equate "strategy" with "business" as many > > are doing here. I think the magic of "D4I" is approaching IxD in an > almost > > Aristotelian, pure fashion. There are many examples of IxD that aren't > > suited to business, but none that aren't suited to strategy. > > > > When I think of strategy in the context of our design work, I think of > > three things: > > > > - philosophy > > - vision > > - planning > > > > Philosophy asks, "What are you about? What do you stand for, what is your > > approach?" This is akin to branding, and figuring out your brand > > personality, your characteristics. Whatever it is that you will be > designing > > needs to be informed by some underlying philosophy. > > > > Vision asks, "Where are you headed? How will you know you're successful?" > > This vision is an articulation of the philosophy that motivates action. > > Think "Made To Stick". A philosophy is insufficient for driving design, > > particularly something as complex as interaction design. Vision provides > the > > north star that guides your efforts toward a successful outcome. > > > > Planning asks, "How will you get there?" I find that in most discussions > of > > strategy, planning is overlooked, with people more interested in talking > > about positioning or competition or other big picture items. But when > I've > > seen products fail, it's often because there was bad planning -- the > > go-to-market strategy was flawed, either too ambitious or not ambitious > > enough, resulting in the release of products that either aren't yet ready > > for prime time or woefully behind the pack. Perhaps the single most > useful > > technique we teach at Adaptive Path's UX Intensive Design Strategy day is > > the Product Evolution Map, which brings rationality and sensibility to > the > > standard product roadmap. > > > > --peter > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > > To post to this list ....... 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