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Back to The Compass ArchitectureThe Compass Architecture · 01 of 07

Strategic Intent

Make direction explicit. Align leadership on the business you are building, the choices it requires, and the priorities that matter now.

Which choices will define the business you are building?

View as

The situation · Entrepreneur / Founder

The direction lives mostly in your head. The team works hard, but each person fills the gaps with their own interpretation.

Desired outcomes

  • Your 3–5-year ambition stated so others can act on it
  • Choices the team understands and can carry
  • Your role in the next stage made explicit

Next step

Bring one Strategic Intent question to a confidential conversation, or see the Architecture applied in the Entrepreneur / Founder journey.

Explore the Entrepreneur / Founder journey
In the Architecture

What Strategic Intent creates

Value created
Explicit strategic choices and a shared leadership focus.
Informs the next discipline
Gives FTB 80/20 the direction against which to test where the business creates value.

Ownership and the executive team state what must be true about the enterprise three to five years out, and name the few objectives that carry it. This is the only stage where the answer is allowed to be aspirational.

Strategic intent — what the enterprise is actually trying to become, stated precisely enough to be designed against. Vague intent is the most expensive document in a business, because every downstream element inherits its ambiguity.

Suppliers · Inputs · Process · Outputs · Customers

The Strategic Intent SIPOC

Suppliers

  • Owners, board or family
  • CEO and executive team
  • Market and customer evidence

Inputs

  • Ownership ambition and time horizon
  • Current results, constraints and commitments
  • Market, customer and competitive signals

Process

  • Describe what must be true three to five years out
  • Make the strategic choices and trade-offs explicit
  • Name the few priorities that matter now
  • Agree how progress will be reviewed

Outputs

  • A written strategic intent
  • Explicit choices and trade-offs
  • A focused leadership agenda

Customers

  • The leadership team
  • FTB 80/20, which tests where value concentrates
  • Every function that inherits the direction
Insights