Similarities and differences between business and engineering strategies
Will Larson on engineering strategy
Strategy is just diagnosis, guiding principles and set of coherent actions
Engineering strategy – honest diagnosis and practical approach
Mock "Widget and Hammer" example – the same set of assumptions might be honest and dishonest, depending on the situation. There's nothing universally honest
Practical approach means trade-offs. If there are no trade-offs, it's impractical (can't do everything at once)
Engineering strategy exists in most companies, but it's just rarely written. Writing it down is very useful
Examples from Stripe, Uber, Carta: in Carta, on purpose they didn't use fancy technologies, some employees left, but it was assumed and matched the goal; in Uber, the approach was not to rely on the cloud and use their own hardware, which allowed to quickly capture emerging markets
How to impose a strategy: borrow authority from a CTO, or write down the reality. How to borrow an authority – listen carefully what CTO is trying to say, then go and ask for a permission to implement. Debug feedback, don't argue!
A guide on writing down: prepare 5 design docs, sythesise them into a narrow strategy, repeat 5 times to arrive to a broader strategy
HBR: Planning is not a strategy
Planning is "we will do A, B, C". Like building a plant or launching a product. It's controlled by us, and gives a sense of comfort. Strategy is a theory – "if we do A, B, C, it will allow us to achieve a desired outcome because....". It's not controlled, as we can't force customers to buy a product. It's also has some angst, because there's an associated risk An example of a good strategy – Southwestern. While other airlines focused on routes, Southwestern focused on value. They decided to take only short flights, no meals on the board, standardised set of aircrafts => perfect low-coster => quickly captured the market, achieving more mile-seats than all other airlines How to switch from planning to strategy: accept the anxiety, lay out your logic (using Porter's 5 forces or any other framework), start moving and adjust. Keep it simple – a single page for a strategy.