Awesome Strategic Planning

A curated list of the best resources about strategic planning for CEOs, senior executives, and directors responsible for setting company direction.

Inspired by awesome lists. Maintained by Rework.

Most strategic plans are budgets dressed up as strategy. Richard Rumelt calls it "bad strategy" — a collection of goals with no diagnosis of the real challenge, no guiding policy, no coherent set of actions. The resources below will help you build a real strategy: one that makes hard choices, concentrates resources, and creates sustainable advantage.

Contents

Articles

Books

  • Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt - The clearest modern book on what real strategy is and why most companies don't have one.
  • Playing to Win by Roger Martin & A.G. Lafley - A practical five-question framework for making strategy real and actionable.
  • Competitive Strategy by Michael Porter - The foundational text on industry analysis, competitive positioning, and the Five Forces. (classic)
  • Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne - How to create new market space instead of competing in existing red oceans.
  • The Crux by Richard Rumelt - Rumelt's follow-up to Good Strategy Bad Strategy, focused on identifying the core strategic challenge.

Videos & Talks

Tools & Software

  • Cascade Strategy - Strategy execution software that connects goals, projects, and KPIs in one platform.
  • Quantive - AI-powered strategy and OKR platform that links planning to execution and performance data.
  • Miro - Collaborative whiteboard for running strategy workshops, mapping journeys, and building frameworks.
  • Lucidchart - Diagramming tool for building strategy maps, org charts, and process flows.
  • Notion - Flexible workspace for housing strategy documents, roadmaps, and team wikis.
  • Aha! - Strategic roadmapping tool that connects vision and strategy to product plans.
  • OnStrategy - Purpose-built strategic planning software with execution tracking and reporting.
  • Strategyzer - Tools for business model and value proposition design, tightly linked to strategic planning.

Templates & Frameworks

Case Studies & Real-World Examples

  • Apple (Steve Jobs's return, 1997) - When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company had 90 days of cash left and was selling 40 different products. Jobs's strategic plan was brutally simple: kill everything except four products arranged in a two-by-two grid (consumer/pro, desktop/portable). That ruthless strategic focus — a textbook application of Rumelt's "kernel of strategy" — turned Apple from a near-bankrupt company into the world's first trillion-dollar corporation. Source
  • Microsoft under Satya Nadella (2014) - Nadella inherited a company organized around Windows monopoly defense. His strategic plan replaced that defensive posture with a single guiding policy: "mobile-first, cloud-first." The restructuring redirected R&D, acquisitions, and sales incentives toward Azure and Office 365, growing Microsoft's market cap from $300 billion to over $3 trillion in ten years — one of the greatest corporate strategy pivots in history. Source
  • Netflix (2011 pivot) - Netflix's decision to split DVD and streaming into two separate businesses (briefly rebranded as Qwikster) was widely mocked as a strategic failure. But the underlying strategic logic — that DVD and streaming required completely different cost structures, content strategies, and competitive responses — was correct. Netflix's willingness to make an uncomfortable strategic choice, even at the cost of short-term PR damage, enabled them to dominate global streaming. Source
  • Southwest Airlines - Southwest's strategic plan has been the same for over 50 years: low cost, no frills, point-to-point routes, one aircraft type. Michael Porter used Southwest as his primary example of what strategy actually is — a unique and valuable position maintained through a coherent, mutually reinforcing set of activities. While competitors have cycled through dozens of strategy shifts, Southwest's consistency generated decades of uninterrupted profitability in one of the world's most turbulent industries. Source
  • IKEA - IKEA's strategy is unchanged since Ingvar Kamprad wrote his 1976 manifesto: "A Furniture Dealer's Testament." The flat-pack model, self-service stores, and focus on working families with limited income are strategic choices that reinforce each other completely. IKEA's refusal to deviate from this strategy — declining to add delivery and assembly services for decades — is a case study in disciplined strategic focus generating $44 billion in annual revenue across 63 countries. Source
  • Lego (2004 turnaround) - By 2003, Lego was losing $1 million per day. The company had diversified into theme parks, clothing, video games, and other extensions that diluted the brand and drained cash. New CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp commissioned a strategic diagnosis — exactly the process Rumelt describes in Good Strategy Bad Strategy — that identified the core challenge: Lego had lost touch with its customers and its core competence. The back-to-basics strategy that followed returned Lego to profitability within two years and made it the world's most profitable toy company by 2015. Source

Communities & Newsletters

Rework Resources

Explore more strategic planning content on the Rework blog:

Contributing

Know a great strategic planning resource that should be on this list? Let us know.