Strategy.
Strategy is the set of choices and working rules that lets a business decide what to do, what not to do and how to act when the owner is not in the room. It is not the list of tasks due this quarter.
More than a plan
An operating plan says what will be delivered and when. Strategy deals with the choices underneath it: which clients and work fit, how the firm intends to make money, what quality means here, where authority sits and which trade-offs are acceptable.
What this looks like in project work
The choices show up in ordinary operating details. What counts as a project or a phase? When can work move from an internal team to a contractor? Who may approve a change in scope? Which figure is used when a director asks whether a live job is going well?
Those are not settings for the implementation consultant to decide. They affect quoting, resourcing, reporting and the promises made to clients, so the business needs to settle them before they are embedded in a workflow.
The business context
The choices also have to survive contact with the market. A strategy can make sense internally while describing work no client values, or a delivery model the business cannot support. We look at the context around the firm as well as its stated ambitions.
Decisions other people can make
In many small businesses, non-routine decisions return to the owner because the rules for weighing them have never been made explicit. We work to surface those rules in enough detail for someone else to make a sound call and explain why.
Between people and systems
Strategy follows the people because their knowledge and judgement are part of what the business is. It comes before systems because software needs parameters: what a project is, how work is priced and approved, which information matters, and who may change it. Configuration cannot settle those questions on the business's behalf.
Writing on strategy
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