Strategy

Decisions are made for a reason. Strategy keeps your organization's goals and principles in one place, links decisions to them, and shows where the two don't meet.

Goals and principles

• A goal is something the organization wants to achieve, such as halving onboarding time. A goal can have an owner, and is Active, Achieved or Retired.
• A principle is a rule the organization decides by, such as buying before building. It's Active or Retired.

Admins and approvers add them with New goal or principle on the Strategy page, and edit them, change their status or delete them from each one's own page. A goal or principle that decisions link to can't be deleted, only retired, so those decisions keep their reason. Achieved and retired ones are hidden on the Strategy page until you choose Show achieved and retired.

Linking decisions

On a decision's page, choose Link to a goal or principle under the tags, and tick the goals the decision serves and the principles it applies. Like tags, links can change after the decision is approved, and every change is recorded in its timeline. The decision's owner, approvers and admins link it.

You can also pick them when creating a decision. A template can start its decisions with goals and principles already ticked, and a decision that supersedes another starts with that one's.

Exceptions to a principle

Sometimes a decision departs from a principle on purpose: you usually buy before you build, but this time you build. Tick the principle and choose Exception instead of Applies, and say why. The decision then shows Exception to the principle, with the reason under its tags, and the timeline records it.

A principle that decisions keep making exceptions to may no longer fit how you work. That's something the Strategy page points out.

What the Strategy page shows

Each goal and principle shows how many decisions in force and being decided link to it, and for a principle, how many of those are exceptions. Above the list, the page points out:

• active goals no decision serves: nothing in force or being decided is working toward them;
• principles with two or more exceptions in force or being decided, which may need another look;
• approved decisions that serve no goal, with Show them to open them in the decisions list.

A goal or principle's own page lists its decisions in three groups, In force, Being decided, and Rejected, superseded or archived, each with how its assumptions and success criteria have turned out so far. Exceptions are marked, with their reasons.

Finding decisions by goal

The decisions list has a Goals and principles filter, with No goal for decisions linked to none. Open these decisions in the decision list on a goal or principle's page does the same. Like any filter, it combines with the rest and can be part of a saved filter.