Tactical and Strategic

On September 15, 2018 in notes • 1 minutes read

Many teams confuse tactics with strategy, using the terms interchangeably or treating strategy as “big tactics.” But the distinction matters: strategy defines where you’re going and why, while tactics determine how you’ll get there.

This framework from Agilitrix clarifies the difference across seven key dimensions:

	Strategy	Tactics
Purpose	To identify clear broader goals that advance the overall organization and organize resources.	To utilize specific resources to achieve sub-goals that support the defined mission.
Roles	Individuals who influence resources in the organization. They understand how a set of tactics work together to achieve goals.	Specific domain experts that maneuver limited resources into actions to achieve a set of goals.
Accountability	Held accountable to overall health of organization.	Held accountable to specific resources assigned.
Scope	All the resources within the organizations, as well as broader market conditions including competitors, customers, and economy. Yet don’t over think it, to paraphrase my business partner Charlene Li, “Strategy is often what you don’t do”.	A subset of resources used in a plan or process. Tactics are often specific tactics with limited resources to achieve broader goals.
Duration	Long Term, changes infrequently.	Shorter Term, flexible to specific market conditions.
Methods	Uses experience, research, analysis, thinking, then communication.	Uses experiences, best practices, plans, processes, and teams.
Outputs	Produces clear organizational goals, plans, maps, guideposts, and key performance measurements.	Produces clear deliverables and outputs using people, tools, time.

As Charlene Li notes in the original piece: “Strategy is often what you don’t do.” Understanding this distinction helps organizations avoid the common trap of confusing busy tactical work with strategic progress. Both are necessary, but they require different thinking, different people, and different time horizons.

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