Strategies and Tactics

In both the fog of war and the chaos of business, it's very difficult to be successful without defining both what you are trying to accomplish and how you intend to accomplish it.

There are a lot of approaches for defining and distinguishing between both these questions.

OKR's (Objectives and Key Results) are perhaps less trendy than they were a few years ago, but they are one approach to formalizing this. "Objectives" are what you are trying to accomplish, and "Key Results" are the how - with measurements built in.

Many software development management frameworks use concepts such as "Milestones" or "Epics" that define what you are trying to accomplish, with individual tasks that break down how you intend to get there. Those tasks might take the form of cards, stories, or even just rows on a spreadsheet, but they all are in support of a larger goal.

Since these frameworks can be a bit rigid and might not apply universally to everyone, you can look at the what as your strategy, and the how as your tactics.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Strategies

The exact definition of a strategy can differ depending on who you ask, but they are usually big-picture goals and actions that support the mission of a company or organization.

For example, the mission of a SaaS company is probably something along the lines of building a better product and acquiring more customers. A strategy to support that mission might be Grow market share from 15 to 25% by July 2025. That strategy is well-defined, measurable, and supports the mission of the company. Another strategy might be Reduce our Customer Acquisition Cost by 30%, since that helps with the mission of making more money.

Of course, a raw strategy doesn't have much utility by itself - that's where the tactics come in.

Tactics

Tactics are specific actions that you will take to deliver the strategy. Effective tactics must be well-defined and measurable.

Let's take the strategy of Reduce our Customer Acquisition Cost by 30%. We might put together some different tactics to support that strategy:

• Analyze the lowest performing campaigns, and eliminate them.
• Improve customer segmentation to better target higher revenue prospects, ensuring that the spend is at least 200% greater on the higher-value prospects.
• Add 3 new solution-oriented landing pages on website to help potential customers better understand how the software can help them.
• Build specific campaigns around the 3 solutions offered in these landing pages, and send to 5,000 customers each.

Implementation

Strategies and tactics can be different at various levels. A company can have a strategy of "Increase market share by 20%", but that's not a goal that the product and engineering department can have direct control over.

In support of the larger company strategy, product and engineering might have a strategy of "Close the feature gap with competitor A". Tactics could include market research, a roadmap to implement necessary features, and a product marketing plan to ensure that everyone knows about what is being built in the software.

Marketing might have a completely different set of strategies and tactics in support of that same company strategy. They can't build the software but they can have a separate set of strategies that move the company forward in this goal, as well as tactics that serve as a specific plan for doing so.

Company leadership must decisively define strategy. If you don't know exactly what you are trying to accomplish, you are the proverbial ship without a rudder. It might be a fantastically built ship with the finest crew available, but without direction the ship will never achieve its purpose.

If there are no strategies in place for how your company will achieve its goals, then there is no path for achieving them.

If there are no tactics to support those strategies, then the strategies are just hand-waving, pseudo-motivational optimism.

A good set of strategies understood by everyone at the company, with well-defined, measurable tactics to achieve them, will give everyone a shared direction and a unifying, common purpose to work towards. And if you've ever been lucky enough to work at a company that can claim this well-defined, shared sense of purpose, you know that they are virtually unbeatable.

If you are struggling as a company, department, or team, take a look at your strategies and tactics. Are they well-defined? Measurable? Understood by everyone? Most importantly, are your strategies the right ones to achieve your company goals?

Even if your company isn't struggling, review your strategies periodically and question them and their tactics. Markets change, and competitive landscapes evolve. What was important in the recent past might not even matter anymore. Don't get stuck working on strategies that are no longer moving you forward.

Strategies and tactics are an essential tool for guiding organizations and moving them forward, and the company that wins is almost always the company that was able to determine and execute on the best strategy.