Crafting Strategy: Planning how you will prevail over competitors and obstacles

Rating:
Summary: Refreshingly straightforward
Review: This short, well-written book covers strategic planning in a fast-paced, but complete, manner.

Highlights are Part 3, Strategy Concepts, and Part 4, Tools and Methods.

Part 3 gives a concise view of how to compete, forces and elements in the competitive environment, and how to place competitors into a context in which you can craft a competitive strategy. I thought that the strongest chapter in this part of the book was on value-based management.

Although I liked Part 3, I loved Part 4. The basic tools for crafting a strategy are thoroughly discussed. The treatment of strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats (SWOT) analysis was clear and well done; however I especially liked value chain analysis and scenario mapping. I was able to quickly put these two tools to use on a project, making the book far more valuable to me than its cost. I also gained a lot from Part 5, which contains excellent advice on how to turn your strategic planning into action.

Overall, this is a wonderful book and is short, packed with information and [in my case] a just-in-time resource for a project.