Making a Good Strategy is very much like making a good design. You may have some data, but you cannot engineer the “right” approach, you can only make an educated guess.
- Like design, in strategy you have to understand the customer’s true needs, which means understanding their Incentives, because Solving People’s Problems Requires Understanding Their Incentives.
- Like design, you have to use intuition. What problems can be potential solved. What trade offs are worth making?
- Like design, strategy is best when it’s kept simple. The Perfect Tool is an example of good design and good strategy.
- Like design, the components of a strategy should add to more than the sum of their parts. They should Synergize.