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A long list of ‘things to do,’ often mislabelled as ‘strategies’ or ‘objectives,’ is not a strategy. It is just a list of things to do. Such lists usually grow out of planning meetings in which a wide variety of stakeholders make suggestions as to things they would like to see done. Rather than focus on a few important items, the group sweeps the whole day’s collection into the ‘strategic plan.

RumeltGood Strategy / Bad Strategy
p.53

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A good strategy recognizes the nature of the challenge and offers a way of surmounting it. Simply being ambitious is not a strategy.

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A good strategy includes a set of coherent actions. They are not “implementation” details; they are the punch in the strategy. A strategy that fails to define a variety of plausible and feasible immediate actions is missing a critical component.

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If you fail to identify and analyze the obstacles, you don’t have a strategy. Instead, you have either a stretch goal, a budget, or a list of things you wish would happen.

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It is often said that a strategy is a choice or a decision. The words “choice” and “decision” evoke an image of someone considering a list of alternatives and then selecting one of them.

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People normally think of strategy in terms of action—a strategy is what an organization does. But strategy also embodies an approach to overcoming some difficulty. Identifying the difficulties and obstacles will give you a much clearer picture of the pattern of existing and possible strategies.

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