How to write strategy at speed

The evidence keeps coming in, whether that's through surveys like the work done by the APG, or people simply reporting more and more of it.

We – strategists and marketers, both agency and in-house – are constantly being asked to think more, do more, and demonstrate more, in less time.

There's a few ways to counter it. We can moan about it on LinkedIn (not very helpful). We can moan about it to our boss (marginally more helpful).

We can also not moan about it, let it fester within, eventually burn out, quit in spectacular fashion, invest in psychotherapy, rediscover our sense of self, start a podcast about our transformational journey (probs not helpful).

Or! We can find practical ways to work better with what we've got. We can, indeed should, channel our inner Jean-Paul Sartre who famously said "freedom is what you do with what is given to you". How can we be free?

Well, through my work over the past 15+ years, helping brands like Cadbury, O2, WARC and J.P.Morgan find clarity at speed, I've been collecting a few techniques that work. I'd like to share them with you.

This isn't a prescription. I'm not saying you need to do all of these to succeed. But do pick a few and see what works. It's a buffet, not a menu.

Let's get into it.

1. Assume you can't negotiate time (then do it anyway)

Boundaries. We all want them. And yet, how often do we ask for them? The very first step, of course, is to see whether the deadline really is a hard deadline. But while you do that, also plan for in case it's definitely not.

This is the essence of asking for the best scenario and planning for the worst. The Stoics would have liked it too. Preparedness, not prediction.

2. Start with instinct not immersion

When we start a new project, we all need time to immerse ourselves and get up to speed. This is natural. However, when pressed for time you can also start by writing down what instinctively you think the answer is.

Then go and immerse yourself in those questions, see what sticks, iterate. This will feel weird for a bit, because how dare you write a strategy draft without doing your due diligence, but you're looking to establish where your head is at, and then seeing where you might be missing things.

3. (Re)write your skeleton as you go

Through the previous points' process, you will naturally write your strategy by re-writing it quite a lot. This is natural, and healthy.

As you get more clues, write a draft skeleton based on the evidence to date. Then go back into evidence, then come back into the skeleton.

It's a bit like prompting an AI. The give and take is where the value lies.

4. Transcribe yourself talking about the problem

I find that switching media can be quite helpful to gather perspective. Whether you start with a doc or a deck, consider dropping them for a minute. Grab a recording app. And record yourself talking about it.

It's amazing how sometimes the stuff we write makes total sense on paper, and once we say it we spot the holes. Transcribing yourself talking about the problem can be an effective way to spot those holes after.

Bonus tip: you can then take that transcription, load it to a LLM, and ask it to spot the holes in your logic as well. It's hard on the ego, but effective.

5. Negotiate a soft deadline for a good enough answer

See, I love a good enough answer. Not because I'm not ambitious, but because I fundamentally believe something that is good enough and on time beats something that is perfect and missed an opportunity.

Philosophical debates aside, this technique is all about manufacturing a team check-in whereby you can discuss the direction of travel and adjust accordingly. It helps people buy into where you're going, which is crucial.

The trick is, you want this to feel like a collaborative process. You can do this with creative directors, business directors, or even with clients. It's amazing the weight that lifts off your shoulders after these sessions.

6. Embrace the art of the artefact

But then there's the question, oh shit what do I bring to those chats? A presentation? A document? Your mileage may vary, but I prefer either a written document with your narrative, or a one page slide. That's it.

Both can work because they're artefacts you can point to and work around, rather than fully fleshed out things that are ready to serve. A presentation creates the wrong body language, but these prime people in the right ways.

The benefit of a written document is that it shows logical flow. A one page slide shows how everything fits together. But bring a simple artefact that makes this feel less like "us vs you", and more like "us vs the problem".

7. Iterate your way into a narrative

I love a good sprint methodology, where the job isn't for you to come up with perfect answers, but to have agreed answers emerge as you go.

The difference between this technique and re-writing your skeleton is that I like to do this as a more collaborative effort. Say, for instance, we get together for 30 minutes every morning, and iterate on where we're at.

This may not always feel natural, because deep work matters too, but this frequency of contact is one way you can stress test your arguments without creating unnecessary pressure on you or the team to 'nail it' (yet).

8. Co-write the strategy with others (including clients)

Related to the previous point, but it can be done through a sprint or outside of a sprint. For all I care, you can call it just "a session" and spend 2 hours trying to agree some answers among the core team. It doesn't matter.

The benefit of this is that you create greater cohesion among everyone, because you're making strategy feel like a team sport. Which I know some may disagree, but in my experience it can work quite effectively.

It also means that, as the sell in process begins with your clients' stakeholders, they will feel the strategic argument much more deeply in their bones. Rather than just knowing it broadly in their heads.

And that feeling is the difference between being interested in something, and being committed to doing everything you can to push it through. Because chances are, your client will need to argue for this work. So give them as much emotional ammo to feel the argument as you possibly can.

9. Try texting it to your boss in a rush

Call it paranoia, but I often like to assume that at any given point someone's gonna text me in a rush and ask for an update on where we're at with the strategy because, oh I dunno, they're having lunch with the CEO.

The reason I do this is because it encourages me to have absolute clarity and brevity at the top of everything I'm going for. I often joke that if comedians think in punchlines, strategists think in headlines. This is why.

But it's amazing how clear-minded you can get if you know you need to text your boss something to the effect of "so we think the problem here is there's plenty of emotional resonance but low product comprehension, so we're changing the role of some channels to balance the comms plan".

10. Do the 'because' / 'by' test

Words like "insight" and "strategy" are loaded like hell, so I prefer more plain English words as substitutes for when you know you got something.

Definitions aside (let's not go there), I find that a useful technique to know if you have an insight is what you write after "because". And a good technique for knowing if you have a strategy is what comes after "by".

"We want people to switch to our service" is not an insight nor a strategy. "People aren't switching to our service because they think we're too basic for their needs, so we need to elevate our brand perceptions by showing our simplicity is actually a marker of sophistication" get you much closer.

11. Assume 70% information

I have never. Not ever. Received a brief with 100% perfect information. Sure, you want some basic information, and no a one line email saying "can you have a think about this" is not worthy of being called a brief.

But between this and expecting all the elements to be in place before we can start, there are ways to add value and start moving the process along.

If you're still waiting on some product details, start by understanding how people perceive the brand. If you're still waiting on final budgets, work on a range of comms and production scenarios for a range of budget options.

There are probably some core elements without which you can't really get the job done properly. What's the business problem? Who are we targeting? What are we offering? Why would they care? Nail these first.

But afterwards, the modern world of business sadly can get too chaotic for you to get all the answers now, at 100% fidelity. Work with 70% instead. Again, good enough answers you can execute beat perfect ones you can't.

12. Get to a shitty first draft

This is less of a technique and more of a mindset, and it comes from one of my favourite writers on writing, Anne Lamott. She has this great concept about how your primary task is to simply nail the shitty first draft.

Why? Because this gives you something concrete to work with after, find holes, build upon, and show around to others for a collective critique.

I also find the shitty first draft is a fantastic solution to what we might call writer's block, or indeed strategist's block, whereby you don't really know where to even begin and so you end up feeling stuck before you even start.

But once you have a shitty first draft, you're already going. Now you just need to start chipping away at what's there and asking better questions. There's a reason you don't hear so much of editor's block. This is it.

13. Write the strategy story as you remember it best

Look, all of the above really is designed to help you get to the clearest possible articulation of the problem, the solution, and what to do next. And clear articulations are often memorable, so learn to trust your memory.

I've recently been observing a series of focus groups for a financial services client, and while fascinating there's also a lot of stuff you hear and feel you need to write down and capture and digest and... oof, tiring right?

Or, you can capture the stuff that felt fresh to you, and then give yourself time to simply ask yourself: armed with everything I've been hearing so far, how would I write from memory what's really going on here?

This is also one of the reasons I argue for stream of consciousness writing as part of your strategic and creative process, because this taps into your subsconscious and what's lingering around. It's a great bullshit detector.

And a strategy story, when done well, is absent of bullshit. It's plain English. It's stuff you can talk about without even having slides to support. You just feel it. And you maximise the chances of others just feeling it too.

So that's it for now! 13 practical ways to write strategy at speed. They may not all work for your brain or culture, but some might. Give them a go and create your own. Just keep them simple and practical. Most strategy isn't.

Want to go deeper?

I also work with marketing teams by either using techniques like these to workshop comms and content strategy problems, or by training them to do this themselves. If you'd like to discuss working together, you can start here.