Strategy classics

Strategy books and frameworks, explained

Each page explains one strategy book or framework in our own words: who it's for, the core ideas, how to run it step by step, a worked example, and the mistakes people make with it. Each ends with a free AI skill that runs the method on your own facts, which you can download or add to your team's pod.

Not sure which one fits your situation? Start with how to choose a strategy framework, or browse the strategy skills.

• Choosing a strategy frameworkFive forces, SWOT, VRIO, Wardley maps, the strategy kernel and more: which strategy framework fits which question, and how to choose in four questions.
• Porter's five forcesHow to run Porter's five forces: define the industry, rate each force with evidence, find what limits profit, and pick where to compete. With a worked example.
• Porter's generic strategiesCost leadership, differentiation, and focus: how to choose one of Porter's generic strategies on evidence, avoid the middle, and name its trade-offs.
• Porter's value chainHow to run a value chain analysis: list primary and support activities, give each a cost share and driver, find where buyers see value, and pick the changes.
• VRIO frameworkVRIO in plain words: test each resource for Value, Rarity, Imitability, and Organization, read the result from parity to sustained advantage, and act on it.
• Helmer's 7 PowersHelmer's 7 Powers in plain words: an advantage lasts only with a benefit and a barrier. The seven types, when each appears, an example, and how to test yours.
• SWOT and TOWSA SWOT analysis that leads to action: evidence for every item, external factors first, then a TOWS matrix that pairs them into SO, WO, ST, and WT strategies.
• BCG's five strategy stylesYour Strategy Needs a Strategy, summarized: rate your market on predictability, malleability and harshness, pick one of five styles, and change how you plan.
• Rumelt's strategy kernelRumelt's strategy kernel from Good Strategy Bad Strategy: write a diagnosis, a guiding policy and coherent actions, then test for the signs of bad strategy.
• Strategy choice cascadeLafley and Martin's strategy choice cascade: five linked choices on one page, where to play and how to win as a pair, and a what-would-have-to-be-true check.
• ERRC grid and strategy canvasHow to draw a strategy canvas and fill an ERRC grid (Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, Create), from Kim and Mauborgne's Blue Ocean Strategy, with a worked example.
• Ansoff matrixThe Ansoff matrix sorts growth options into market penetration, market development, product development and diversification. How to use it, with an example.
• Scenario planningTest a decision against four plausible futures. Steps based on Shell's practice and Peter Schwartz's method: focal question, uncertainties, signposts.
• Theory of ConstraintsThe Theory of Constraints from The Goal, in plain words: find the one step that limits output, exploit it, subordinate the rest, add capacity last, repeat.
• Build-measure-learnThe build-measure-learn loop in plain words: test your riskiest assumption with the smallest MVP, set the metric and threshold first, then pivot or persevere.
• Crossing the chasmCrossing the Chasm in plain words: why sales stall after early adopters, and how to pick one beachhead segment, complete the whole product, and grow next door.
• Jobs-to-be-done switch interviewHow to run a jobs-to-be-done switch interview: who to recruit, the timeline from first thought to first use, the four forces, and the job statement.
• THE MODEL sales funnelTHE MODEL, the Japanese B2B sales classic by Yasutaka Fukuda, splits revenue work into marketing, inside sales, field sales and customer success. How to run it.
• Wardley mappingA Wardley map places what your business is made of by visibility to the user and by evolution, from genesis to commodity. How to draw one, with an example.
• Sun Tzu: know the enemyWhat Sun Tzu's "know the enemy and know yourself" really says, its two weaker cases, and how to run it as a two-sided competitor assessment.
• Musashi's Book of Five RingsWhat Musashi's Book of Five Rings says about the two ways of seeing, kan and ken, and how to use it to step back from an urgent number before you decide.

These pages are independent summaries. They aren't written, reviewed, or endorsed by the books' authors or publishers.