Strategy memo
The decision doc that gets re-argued every quarter
Why we are not building the mobile app this year
- Shape
- The trade-off
- Plates
- lede · dial · table · compare · cheatsheet
- Why
- A memo that states a conclusion gets re-argued. A memo that makes the constraint draggable does not, because the reader has felt where the months go. `dial` is the argument; the temptation is to recommend a stop, and resisting it is what makes the memo survive contact with somebody who disagrees.
We have eighteen engineer-months before the renewal cycle. This memo is not about whether a mobile app would be good. It would. It is about what stops.
Move the months. Watch what stops.
| Mobile | Renewals | Reliability |
|---|---|---|
| A viewer | On time | Slips a quarter |
Read-only mobile. Reliability work moves, and we have promised it twice.
The two honest positions
Think of
Wait a year
Lose a handful of deals that ask for an app. Keep the renewals and finally do the reliability work we have deferred twice.
Not quite
Do a bit of both
Six months buys a viewer nobody asked for, and moves the reliability work into the quarter we have already promised it in.
The short version
- 1
This is a capacity decision, not a product one.
- 2
If we hire two more engineers by June, the memo is wrong and should be rewritten.
- 3
Revisit when a renewal is actually lost on mobile, not when one is threatened over it.
This is a sample. To author the same thing about your own subject, just name it. Your assistant can read this template, and will write you the same document about what you know.
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