---
name: strategic-thinking
description: >
  Use for strategic thinking, or when the user must choose a direction under constraints: "where should we focus?", "how do we win?", "roadmap for next year", "what should we not do?". Ends in explicit bets and risks. Skip for step-by-step implementation.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: ysskrishna
  version: "2026.10.5"
---

# Strategic Thinking

Strategy is choosing what **not** to do as much as what to do. End with explicit bets and guardrails.

## When to use

- Choosing a direction for a product, team, company, technology platform or career under real constraints.
- Competitive positioning, "where to play and how to win", roadmap narrative, portfolio trade-offs.
- Leadership or board-style narrative that links goals to constraints.

Skip: step-by-step implementation detail, or choosing between two concrete options on named criteria.

## Before you start

1. State in one block: **Strategic question** (one sentence) and **Pass** (Intent, Landscape, Advantage, Options, Choice, Risks and Cadence).
2. **Gather first.** Read the roadmap, docs, metrics or market notes you can reach before writing Landscape. Never invent market facts; say what is unknown. Ask up to 3 questions only for goals and non-negotiables that tools cannot answer.
3. **Light path.** Small ask: 1-2 lines per phase, 2 options, same order.
4. If the user wants a memo or deck storyline, add a **Short story** after Risks and Cadence (5-7 sentences: tension, insight, decision, proof path).

## Phases

### 1. Intent
**Win definition:** which outcome, by when. **Non-goals:** what is explicitly out of scope.

### 2. Landscape
Forces that matter: customers, competition, technology, regulation, economics. Use **Implication:** bullets, not encyclopedic lists. Keep short when information is thin.

### 3. Advantage (or **Honest gap**)
Where could durable advantage come from: assets, learning loops, distribution, data, brand, cost? If none is credible, say so and pivot to how to build one.

### 4. Options
2-4 genuinely different strategies:

> **Option:** ... - **Bet:** ... - **Cost:** ... - **Kill signal:** ...

### 5. Choice
Name one primary option (parallel bets only if clearly justified). Say **why now** and what you are **deferring or rejecting**.

### 6. Risks and Cadence
Top 3 risks with mitigations. Then a **near-term focus**, a **longer-term thesis** and a **review trigger** (a metric or event that forces a rethink). Match the horizons to the domain: 90 days and 12 months suit a business plan; an architecture or career decision may need different spans, so state the spans you chose.

## Pitfalls

- Platitudes ("innovate", "customer-centric") with no mechanism.
- Options that are really one option in different words.
- A Choice that introduces a strategy not in Options. Label it a revision if so.
- Advantage claimed with no evidence. Use Honest gap.

Worked example: [references/example.md](references/example.md).

## Checklist

- [ ] Strategic question and Pass stated
- [ ] Intent includes non-goals
- [ ] Options use Bet, Cost, Kill signal
- [ ] Choice explicit, with what is deferred or rejected
- [ ] Risks and Cadence: top 3 risks, stated horizons, review trigger