Give tactical decisions a strategic direction
Make strategic choices clear enough to guide everyday action, with a route for exceptions and learning.
A strategy becomes useful when it helps people choose between competing actions. Teams need enough direction to understand what to pursue, what to decline and which trade-offs require a wider decision.
For this guide, strategic choices concern the direction, scope and basis on which the organisation intends to create value. Tactical decisions concern how to act within those choices in a particular situation. The distinction concerns the role of the decision, not simply whether it is short-term or long-term.
Michael Porter's strategy framework emphasises choices, trade-offs and consistency among activities. The practical implication here is to make those choices specific enough to guide everyday judgement.
Make the boundaries usable.
“Be innovative” leaves almost any project defensible. A more useful direction identifies the customers or needs to serve, the value to create, the capabilities to build and the work that does not fit. It also explains which assumptions could cause those choices to be reviewed.
A software business chooses a repeatable product for mid-sized manufacturers. A sales team receives an attractive request for a highly customised implementation that would consume the shared engineering team.
A tactical choice might be to offer a standard configuration, adjust the delivery sequence within agreed capacity, or decline the request. Accepting a bespoke product that changes the target market and delivery model requires a strategic review. It should not happen invisibly through a series of exceptions.
Constraints can give teams room to act confidently: they know which decisions they can take themselves and where they need to escalate. A useful boundary includes its rationale, so people can recognise when circumstances have changed.
Let experience inform the strategy.
Tactical action should be guided by strategy, but it also produces evidence. Repeated customer requests, delivery problems or exceptions may reveal a weak assumption or a valuable new opportunity.
Record those signals and review them deliberately. Distinguish a one-off accommodation from a change in direction. If the strategy changes, update priorities, resource allocations and decision rules together so people can act on the new direction.
This connection between goals and implementation also appears in Clemens Chaskel and John Saiz's IfM Engage article. The work includes equipping people with the skills and organisational support to carry strategy through.
Test the strategy against three recent decisions.
- Which strategic choice guided each decision?
- What did that choice rule out?
- Was the person making the decision authorised and equipped to do so?
- Did an exception reveal something that needs a strategic review?
If people cannot explain the connection, examine the clarity of the strategy, the decision process and the available support before attributing the issue to individual behaviour.