Strategy, Strategy, Strategy
Why – Context and Framing
Strategy. It’s a word that gets thrown around so often that it starts to lose shape.
People say “we need a strategy,” or “we can’t act without one,” as if the absence of a 30-page document is an immovable barrier to action.
This article exists to challenge that mindset and offer clarity. Strategy isn’t just a plan. It’s not just vision statements or a Gantt chart in a slide deck. Strategy is a practice. A way of thinking. A mode of working.
Understanding the difference between strategic thinking, strategic planning, and strategic enablement helps demystify what strategy really is — and unlocks the ability to move forward with both agility and direction.
What – The Three Faces of Strategy
1. Strategic Thinking
Strategic thinking is what happens when we do the work and learn through it. It’s emergent. It’s iterative. It’s messy.
When I constructed my 90-day plan as CTO, I wasn’t just making a to-do list — I was building an engine for strategic thinking. It allowed me to develop insights, test assumptions, discover dependencies, and spot systemic opportunities. It helped inform two outputs:
- A clearer strategic plan
- More effective tactics to enact change
This is the first face of strategy: insight born through engagement.
2. Strategic Planning
Once you've done the thinking, strategic planning captures that insight. It gives it structure: goals, objectives, and timelines that help organise teams and investments.
Think of strategic planning as the scaffolding that allows others to join the build. It supports alignment, prioritisation, and shared direction.
The idea of a digital strategy at Macquarie is one such output. Through our earlier thinking and engagement — including the 90-day plan — we shape a high-level roadmap and focus areas (e.g., Digital Experience, Platform Alignment, IAM) that others can now orient to and execute against.
3. Strategic Enablement (and the Project Myth)
This is where most people get tripped up.
Too often, people assume that because we don’t yet have a published strategy document, we can’t act. Or worse, they assume a project is a strategy.
Projects are not strategic in and of themselves. They are vehicles — tactical instruments — to realise aspects of a strategy.
This is a key strategic principle:
“Projects are how we deliver on strategy, not how we define it.”
So What – Three Use Cases
1. Digital Strategy (Emergent and Intentional)
Our work on digital strategy has emerged over time. We started by engaging across the organisation, listening to needs and pain points, and clarifying our operating model. This was strategic thinking in action.
As we refine, we’re moving from emergent insight to an actual strategic planning artefact: a digital experience strategy with a vision, focus areas, and underpinning plans — ready for broader engagement and activation.
2. Unified Identity and Access Management (IAM)
We’ve launched a 12-week engagement to develop a unified identity strategy — a decision made precisely because we had multiple in-flight IAM projects with no shared strategic framework.
Here, a third party is helping accelerate our strategic thinking so that we can land a plan that shapes future decisions, rationalises architecture, and aligns delivery.
It’s a great example of building a strategy while doing — and recognising that sometimes, the window to think is mid-flight.
3. Observability and the Project Trap
In the observability space, we had a moment of strategic misalignment. I made a comment that we didn’t have an observability strategy, and someone responded by pitching a full strategic framework within a tactical project.
That’s a trap.
Instead, we pulled it back and reframed:
- Use the network monitoring initiative to build a working pattern
- Integrate that pattern into New Relic
- Use that working pattern to inform a broader, long-term full-stack observability strategy
This is what good strategic enablement looks like. The project becomes a testbed — not the strategy itself.
What Next – Guidance for Leaders and Teams
- Don’t wait for the perfect strategy to start.
Start doing. Learn by doing. Think while moving. Let action inform direction. - Know which type of strategy conversation you're having.
Are you exploring? Planning? Delivering? Avoid conflating the three. - Be vigilant about project ≠ strategy.
If a project is underway, be clear about whether it is testing assumptions, delivering outcomes, or shaping future planning. - Build patterns as you go.
As with observability, even tactical work can become strategic if you extract patterns and share them with intent. - Use time-bounded planning (90-day windows).
Short, clear cycles force action and reflection. They keep momentum alive while giving space for emergent thinking.
Final Word
Strategy is not a thing you wait for — it’s something you cultivate.
So next time someone says, “We don’t have a strategy,” ask back:
“What are we learning right now that could help shape one?”
That’s where real strategic leadership begins.