Setting Strategy

[00:00:01]
>> This is what I like to call the groan zone. And you guys have all been in these meetings where there's a new topic that's introduced, everybody's like, yeah, great new topic, great. And then the work begins and people kind of diverge off and go on their own separate paths and their own separate ways.

[00:00:21]
And then we come back together, there comes this time where we are overwhelmed by all this information. We keep going around. We keep going around nobody seems to be getting anywhere. I usually do day long consulting sessions and I always show this slide first and I'm always like, we're gonna hit the groan zone sometime between 130 and 215.

[00:00:40]
And it is incredible how every single time, but nobody ever knows it, but between 130 and 215 somebody will go I just feel like we're going around in circles and not accomplishing anything here. And then people start to converge again and then we get closer by the end of the day.

[00:00:54]
All right. So this can be this is something to just pay attention to when you are doing a workshop or discovery process or even sometimes design that you will hit that groan zone and just recognize, that's what she was talking about, and we're still going to move forward.

[00:01:10]
It's still going to be fine, but I'm either going to sit back and let this happen, which seems to me many of you, that's your personnel. [LAUGH] Or I'm going to step in and sort of say it's okay, we'll move forward. Let's take this problem from a different angle okay?

[00:01:27]
All right. Now we're gonna talk about setting strategy. Okay, first we're going to just create a strategy statement. And these are the first three components for a strategy statement. In x timeframe, we will address weakness or pursue an opportunity. By following this path, so that we will achieve this or these goals.

[00:01:56]
So in this instance we are connecting a goal to the strategy and including it in our core content strategy statement, okay? So, in x timeframe, we will address weakness or pursue opportunity. That's where we will play following this path is how we'll win. And then we'll hit these goals.

[00:02:20]
Okay, and then we can create our strategic objectives after that. So based on strategy priority projects and our activity outcomes will be and then we can list out our projects. Or specific things that we need to do around content okay? All right. So here's an example. And this is where content objectives come into play.

[00:02:47]
So by 2020, we'll rank in the top three car insurance companies as rated by whoever, in 2018 will improve brand perception by rebuilding our website putting user satisfaction at the center of our efforts. So that's where we'll play in how we'll win. Objective we need to conduct user research objective audit content across all our properties and objective to find new platform business requirements.

[00:03:10]
Does that framework make sense? Yes.
>> I guess this is probably gonna be related to a specific real goal, but I kind of got lost on the X timeframe like, I know different people perceive time differently or measure time, differently. How do you kind of arbitrarily assign a timeframe based on whatever goal you have?

[00:03:36]
>> Well, you typically an organization will have a goal set by a year, or like three year goals even right? So we need to set strategy within a timeframe like we can't just say we're gonna relaunch our website sometime. Right, we have to set an end date will relaunch it by q1 of 2019.

[00:04:00]
>> I guess I personally have trouble deciding what timeframe would be appropriate. Well, it is sort of our best guess in terms of resource constraints and competing projects right, yeah. You can always just assume shorter than is actually needed. [LAUGH] In less time than it will realistically take to complete this work, we will okay?

[00:04:28]
So in this instance, we are working within the confines of a website strategy statement, And identifying our related content strategy activities.