The Strategy Sieve
Confidence, Clarity, and Consensus When Making Hard Strategic Decisions
The Strategy Sieve is my preferred tool for making hard, strategic decisions.
According to Wikipedia, a sieve is “a device for separating wanted elements from unwanted material” — and that’s what the Strategy Sieve does. You “pour in” a bunch of potentially good strategic options, shake things up, apply some pressure, separate out the wanted from the unwanted, and determine the best strategy for moving forward.
The goal in using the Sieve is to make a strategic decision. This decision can usually be framed as a question: Who? What? When? Where? How? The Sieve helps the team answer that question with a high level of confidence, a high level of consensus, and a high level of clarity. Most importantly, it helps the team understand Why the answer chosen is the right answer, and why the other potential right answers are actually wrong for you at this time.
The Sieve can be used by an individual in making an important question — I use it all the time in that way — but it’s real value shines when used in a team process, typically involving 3–10 people who have an important stake in the decision being made. When used with a team, I’ve found each person involved will learn important things from her peers about the question (or the opportunity or challenge behind the question), about the options, about the company, and about each other. Used individually, some of these same lessons can be learned, but the lessons often aren’t as much of a breakthrough.
There are six high level steps involved in using the Strategy Sieve as shown below:
At the very end of this article, I include a tutorial video that uses an example to walk through the Sieve process step by step so that you can more clearly understand each step.
Identify Options
The Sieve takes in a collection of strategic options, shakes them up and applies pressure to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each option, and in the end identifies a “best” answer. Usually, the first step in the process is to identify credible options. I find it’s easiest to work the Sieve with 3–8 strategic options. Each option should be a good answer to the strategic question being asked. Since all options will have the same starting point, there is typically a fair amount of overlap between the different options — that’s okay. But each option should set a somewhat different direction forward, leading to different follow-on decisions.
You may be familiar with different strategic decision processes that require “MECE” (mutually exclusive, completely exhaustive) options be considered. That’s not necessary for the Strategy Sieve. In fact, we want to discard options early in the process that don’t have the team’s support, rather than exhaustively sifting every possible option. We also don’t mind having some partially overlapping options, as mentioned above. We’ll learn lessons from each.
The most important common characteristic of each strategic option to be sifted is that everyone on the team has to agree that it’s a good option. When we get to the final list of options to be sifted, I like to go around the table and ask each team member, “Are there any options still on the list that, if selected as the right answer, you won’t be okay with moving forward with it?” If they identify options that aren’t okay, then we explore what about the option makes them uncomfortable. Sometimes the concerns are addressed by other members of the team (and noted), sometimes the option is modified to address the concerns, and sometimes the option is discarded.
As we are developing the list of options, it’s helpful to develop short names for each option that capture the essence of what’s different about this option relative to the others. Although we don’t want to spend a lot of time wordsmithing temporary names, we find that a creative short name that paints a picture of the future under that option can be especially helpful when the sifting begins.
Define and Refine the Options
Now that we have a list of good options, are we ready to sift? Not quite. To make the sifting process go smoothly and consistently, it’s important to make sure that everyone has the same understanding of each option.
I like to create what I call a “Future Snapshot” — a “baseball card” level summary of each option — drawing out the differences that each option would drive if selected. The specific characteristics to define will depend on the strategic question we are focused on. For example, if working to define a business strategy, we might want to list out for each option:
- Our future target customers
- Our future products
- The required capabilities and assets
- The value proposition to customers
For some teams, this can be harder than it sounds. Everyone tends to be so focused on the present state (which is the same for all options) that the future state can be hard to envision. Some team members may also have a problem with focusing. They don’t want to leave anything out. They want to be all things to all people and therefore will extend from the natural definition for a given option to something much broader. We have to take our time and work through these issues.
It’s very common for different team members to understand a given option very differently. This process makes sure that we work through these misunderstandings and get to common definitions before we start sifting.
During this process, there are several things that often happen:
- We may find that options that we thought were very different, are actually almost identical. In this case, we want to combine the two into one that best captures what we think would be a good option.
- We may also find that, once we get to this level of detail, there may be an option or two that one or more team members no longer find acceptable. As before, we work through this with the team to eliminate the concerns, fix the concerns, or eliminate the option.
- We may also find that this process helps identify an additional option that we’ve overlooked. If so, we name it, define it, and make sure that everyone is comfortable with including it in the sifting.
Develop Evaluation Criteria
The Strategy Sieve includes a number of filters through which we’ll screen the options. The specific filters may change somewhat for different organizations and strategies, but a good starting list includes:
- Passions/Objectives
- Capabilities
- Resources
- Opportunities/Threats
- Value Creation
Mechanically, the easiest way to use the Sieve is using a workbook in a spreadsheet program (e.g., Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets). Each filter would have its own worksheet or tab, with one summation worksheet combining the results from each filter (see below). Within each filter worksheet, the columns will be the strategic options and the rows will be specific evaluation criteria within the filter. I like to have 5–10 evaluation criteria per filter.
For example, the Passions/Objectives filter tests the strategic options against the objectives of the organization and the passions of the team. Each row in the spreadsheet will be a distinct objective or passion. Each column will be one of the options being sifted. When it comes time to run the options through the filter, they will be ranked based on their support or alignment with each objective or passion. The #1 ranked option will be the one that either best supports or is most aligned with that objective/passion.
Evaluating Options
Now that we’ve defined the options and the filters, we can start sifting!
The flow of the process is pretty straightforward. If meeting in person, it helps to project the Sieve workbook up on a large display screen for everyone to follow along. If meeting virtually, the workbook should be shared so that everyone can see what’s happening.
Starting with the first filter (e.g. Passions/Objectives), work row by row through the evaluation criteria to rank each option. On each row, the participants discuss which option gets the 1 (best supports/most aligned). It’s often easiest to then identify which gets the lowest ranking (e.g., 5, if there are 5 options being sifted). All of the options are force ranked, so if you have 5 options, you will have one 1, one 2, one 3, one 4, and one 5.
Once we’ve worked through all of the criteria in a filter, we sum up the rows and get an overall score for each option for that filter. The lowest score wins and is the #1 for that screen.
After we’ve completed that process for all the filters, we turn to the Summary worksheet. This one looks just like the filters, but there’s one row from each filter. I like to set this up before we start so that it auto-populates once each filter is completed. Again, the rows are summed to a total for each option, and the options are ranked.
The option with the #1 ranking is the best option. Or is it?
Reality Check
The sentences in that last section flowed really smoothly. The actual process, maybe not so much.
We are seeking consensus on this forced ranking of the various options, but that may not come naturally. The Future Snapshots of the options can really help, but still there’s going to be discussion and debate. This is a good thing! If one person (the CEO or team leader) is throwing out the forced rankings and everyone else is just nodding, the process is NOT working. The goal is not to finish as quickly as possible, but to learn as much as possible on the way to getting to the right answer.
The first filter almost always goes the slowest, and the last filter almost always goes the fastest. When working through the first filter, everyone is learning how it works. Everyone is also learning more about the options and conflicting perspectives of team members are coming to light. By the time we get to the last filter, everyone has a much clearer (and more consistent) view of each option, everyone understands the process, and everyone’s tired. Even so, throughout the entire process, we need to make sure everyone stays engaged and no one mentally or emotionally checks out of the process.
Typing numbers into a spreadsheet is not hard or interesting. We want to believe that the numerical end result is valuable. But in reality, the real value happens in the discussions and debates that happen as team members disagree about the forced ranking of any given row.
Over and over, I have seen “light bulbs” go off during a sifting session as team members suddenly realize that they’ve been talking past each other. Sometimes it’s a clearer understanding of a capability within the organization. Other times it’s new common clarity about a market opportunity. Occasionally, it’s an “Oh no” moment when the rest of the team finally understands what that one guy has been trying to warn them about for the past six months. These breakthroughs are often more valuable than the solution to the question we’re actually sifting to answer. We need to capture all of these discoveries as we work through the process so that we don’t collectively forget them and revert to our previous ignorance and disunity.
At the very least, these discussions and debates get the entire team on the same page. They provide deeper understanding of each of the options being considered. As we go through the filters, we can add information to the Future Snapshots so that we can collectively talk about each option more comprehensively and consistently. These discussions and debates also provide greater clarity about all areas of the evaluation criteria, and a better understanding of which ones are really big deals, and which aren’t.
Evaluating Results
At the end of the Strategy Sieve process, we have what I like to refer to as a mathematically correct answer. But is it the right answer? In the best cases, it’s not.
When the math leads to an answer that isn’t the right answer, I look around the room and see faces fall and shoulders slouch. In this moment, engagement in the process switches from the left brain to the right brain. Debates about facts and mathematically adding and sorting numbers gives way to the emotional reaction that everyone intuitively knows that there’s a better answer. This too is a good thing!
Throughout the process, we have all learned much. We clearly understand each option — how it defines the go-forward business and where its strengths and weaknesses lie. We also better understand what really matters for us — what we really care about and what really will make a difference for our success. If we were to start over now, we probably would eliminate some of the evaluation criteria and we would apply weighting factors to make the criteria that really matter count much more than those that matter less. But we don’t need to do that now, because we have learned what we need to know to make the decision.
Typically, at the beginning of the Sieve process, each person on the team has their own idea of the right answer to the big strategic question. Their ideas are typically all at least slightly different from each other. Most of the options that we test through the process are often somewhat closely aligned with what people had in mind coming in, but through the process those ideas become refined and are improved.
Sometimes, at the beginning of the process, I ask people to secretly write down what they think the right answer is so that they can compare that to the outcome, and it is surprisingly rare that the final right answer is almost exactly the same as what anyone started with. Also, while everyone starts with somewhat different ideas of what the right answer is, by the end of the process, it’s rare for the entire team to not be on the same page as to which option is the right answer.
It doesn’t matter whether the “real” right answer was the “mathematical” right answer, we now only focus on the “real” right answer. Sometimes the “real” right answer isn’t even one of the options, but rather it is one of the options slightly modified to incorporate aspects of one or more of the others. We need to guard against the desire to be all things to all people and lump all the options together, but there can be a legitimately right answer which is a combination of two or more options that is still focused enough to provide clear direction and make hard decisions easy.
Even though we’re tired at this point, it is critical to look through all of the filters to understand where the selected option scored well and where it scored poorly. The criteria on which it scored well will be the strong hooks that are likely to drive the success of the option. The criteria where the selected option scored poorly are areas of challenge that will need to be actively managed and closely monitored. These areas of weakness may also be areas where we can incorporate some aspects of other options to strengthen our go-forward strategy.
Communicating and Implementing the Decision
One of the greatest strengths of the Strategy Sieve process is that, at the end of the process, the entire team is on the same page. They’ve been through the same battles to gain a deep and emotional understanding of the selected option and the reasons why that’s the right answer. They are positioned to be internal champions as they return to their teams and advocate for the path forward that has been selected. They are prepared to answer hard questions about the decision that has been made, not because they have memorized a FAQ, but because they deeply understand everything that is relevant to the decision.
But before we leave the room, we need to consolidate our gains and agree on next steps. At this point, it is very helpful to refine the Future Snapshot summary of the selected option based on what we’ve learned and to assign someone on the team to write a more complete narrative around it. We also need to discuss the implications of the decision — what are the earliest and biggest changes that we need to make in the business based on what we’ve just decided? We need to agree on when and how we’re going to communicate the decision to the broader organization. And we need to agree on how we’re going to manage the implementation of the decision going forward.
Here’s an example from a training session on the Strategy Sieve that I provided to an industry group:
Hopefully you’ll find the Strategy Sieve as helpful in making hard decisions as I have. Let me know if I can ever help you with your hard decisions.
