How the Cookie Crumbles — a simple, easy-to-remember guide for developing your own strategy
At the risk of starting a cookie controversy, I am suggesting that the ideal cookie and an effective strategy have more in common than you think. Here’s a light-hearted, high-level summary from my graduate coursework in Strategic Management at the Harvard Extension School and Harvard Business School.
Disclaimer(s): This is not a sponsored article (although I would definitely accept any form of partnership from Famous Amos or any other cookie manufacturer). Also, I realize that I just wrote a very meta article on a strategy to prepare your own strategy.
What do an ideal cookie and effective strategy share in common?
I believe the ideal cookie has three characteristics: it is crunchy, it is chunky, and it can effortlessly be consumed in a single bite. It is possible that my taste buds have been manipulated from the early years of individually wrapped bags of chocolate chip cookies that my mom would plop into my brown paper bag — but that is all besides the point.
In case you’re wondering, the ideal cookie that I just described does exist and can probably be purchased from your local supermarket. “Bite size, crunchy, and packed with rich chocolate; the perfect munchable cookie,” as stated on the Famous Amos® cookies’ website.
Similarly, an effective strategy has three core components:
- It is crunchy. An effective strategy should have quantifiable metrics — crunch those numbers!
- It is chunky. An effective strategy should have short- and long-term chunks (phases) that express the vision and mission of the project.
- It is bite-size. An effective strategy should be concise and easily consumable by your audience.
Let’s dive into these core components.
Crunchy — Crunch those numbers!
An effective strategy needs to be measurable, and therefore needs specific quantifiable metrics that the team can easily track. Now, it’s important to have your company-wide, North Star metrics, which are commonly “revenue” and/or “user base”. However, these are not isolatable or specific. Eventually, all project teams can argue that they made a significant dent in those company-wide metrics.
Therefore, an effective strategy should be able to crunch the numbers and secondary KPIs that feed into those company-level metrics. For example, they can be clicks, impressions, or other actions that help the customer through the desired user path.
In the finance technology world, it can be getting users through the different stages of know-your-customer (KYC) requirements or verifying their banking information. In the retail world, it can be add-to-carts, subscription models, and advertising revenue.
Chunky — Divide your strategy into phases.
A strategy should have a vision — both short-term and long-term.
- What are the immediate action items that need to be taken?
- How does this help us along the long-term vision for the product/organization?
In addition to the chunks, I’ve found that teams appreciate “themes” that are attached to each of these chunks/phases. For example, Phase 1 is commonly an “experimentation” phase to nail down the ideal user journey and ensure that systems are running as expected before fully launching. Phase 2 is commonly an “adoption” phase — where most projects are directed towards acquiring users to the product.
These themes should have associated and related KPIs that help keep the team aligned on the immediate priorities. Setting the right phases and themes are important to equip teams with the strategic vision to ascern which features take precedence.
An example from the financial startup world — do we want to streamline the regulatory KYC requirements for our users, or do we want to invest more time in developing cool new loyalty features for our customers’ long-term investments? Most definitely, it would be the former. The themes/phases help empower the team to make prioritized decisions.
Bite-size — Keep it simple.
I’ve seen company strategies and quarterly letters that are over 20 pages long, and I assure you that most people are not reading it word-for-word. And for those who do, they likely do not retain the strategy very well.
An effective strategy is short and sweet. It helps to use bullets and lists. For example, “This quarter, we’ll be focusing on these three pillars.” I’ve often turned these pillars into hashtags, which seem to catch-on much faster.
So, there you have it — a scrumptious guide to developing your own strategy. Simply put, it’s not much different from the ideal cookie: chunky, crunchy, and bite-size.
Here it goes!
