4 min read

Decision Memos and Written Operating Culture Series #2: A Decision Memo Is a Thinking Tool

A decision memo should sharpen the choice before it persuades anyone: define the decision, separate relevant context from background, test real alternatives, expose uncertainty, and name the tradeoff. If writing changes no understanding, it has done too little work.
3 min read

Decision Memos and Written Operating Culture Series #1: Written Operating Culture Is Decision Infrastructure

Written judgment becomes decision infrastructure when it makes choices, tradeoffs, objections, ownership, and follow-through inspectable before a commitment and durable afterward. That shared surface reduces reliance on memory, hierarchy, and personality as organizations grow.
1 min read

Product Strategy That Actually Makes Choices — Series Index

Product strategy becomes real when teams choose under constraint: prioritize customer problems, make tradeoffs, allocate resources, sequence bets, set kill criteria, align product with go-to-market and operations, communicate clearly, adapt, and audit the result.
5 min read

Product Strategy That Actually Makes Choices Series #10: The Product Strategy Audit

An effective strategy audit tests live work for the gap between articulate plans and consequential choices. By tracing evidence into priority, sequence, ownership, scope, customer contact, and follow-through, teams can expose alignment that exists only on the surface.
5 min read

Product Strategy That Actually Makes Choices Series #9: When Strategy Needs to Change

Changing course can reflect contact with reality rather than inconsistency, but only when evidence alters an actual choice. The test is whether priorities, sequence, ownership, scope, customer contact, or follow-through change—not whether the new explanation sounds fluent.
5 min read

Product Strategy That Actually Makes Choices Series #8: Communicating Product Strategy Without Theater

Strategy communication earns its place when it makes choices and consequences clearer, not when it merely produces fluent artifacts. A useful message links evidence to action and reveals what changes in priority, sequence, ownership, scope, customer contact, or follow-through.
5 min read

Product Strategy That Actually Makes Choices Series #7: Strategy Across Product and GTM, plus Operations

A strategy becomes real across functions only when product, go-to-market, and operations share the same choice, evidence, and consequences. Clarifying where ownership crosses boundaries prevents each team from carrying a different version of the bet into execution.
5 min read

Product Strategy That Actually Makes Choices Series #6: Kill Criteria and Learning Milestones

Teams learn from bets when they define review standards, learning milestones, and reasons to stop before momentum becomes self-justifying. Explicit criteria connect evidence to action, prevent weak work from receiving endless time, and make future decisions more concrete.

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