Possibility Portraits
Martin's method for generating strategic options worth considering, from his How I Do Strategy writing. His four-step arc: get psyched up (Strategy as Craft) → define the problem → paint possibility portraits → make the choice, enforce it, adjust it.
His four-step arc: get psyched up (Strategy as Craft) → define the problem → paint possibility portraits → make the choice, enforce it, adjust it.
A possibility portrait is a fully imagined strategic option, a coherent mini-Strategy Choice Cascade, not a bullet point. Three generative engines:
- Analogy. What structurally similar situation, in any industry, was solved well? Import the logic, not the surface.
- Trade-off. Take a constraint everyone accepts and imagine refusing it, or accepting one everyone refuses.
- Anomaly. Find the data point that doesn't fit, the customer who behaves "wrongly", and imagine a strategy for a world where the anomaly is the rule.
Portraits are then adjudicated with What Would Have to Be True, never by advocacy strength.
The method operationalises Strategy as Logic Not Analysis: imagination first, logical discipline second, analysis in service of testing conditions.
Our synthesis of Roger Martin’s published work, sources credited. Read the originals: they’re excellent.
Reading about method is not the same as running it. We install this system and build the capability that stays.
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