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The method

The process we followed

The book gives five steps, in order. We followed them.

Step	The question	The tool	What comes out
1. Get started	What business, and who is in the room?	Scope and team	The business the process runs on
2. Understand where you are now	What does the market look like today, honestly?	The strategy canvas	One picture everyone agrees is true
3. Imagine where you could be	Where does the industry hurt buyers, and who does it never serve?	The buyer utility map; the three tiers of non-customers	The raw material for new ideas
4. Find how you get there	What could we stop doing, do less of, do more of, or do that nobody else does?	The six paths; the four actions	A new line on the canvas, with a tagline
5. Make your move	Does it work in reality, and does the money work?	The family's decision; tests with real clubs; the four questions below	One move, ready to test with real clubs

Two kinds of thing sit inside those five steps, and it helps to keep them separate.

The tools we used to find the strategy, each one a different way of looking for the same thing:

The strategy canvas: the market today, drawn as one picture so every supplier can be compared honestly.
The buyer utility map: where the industry causes real pain today, and where it already competes hard.
The three tiers of non-customers: who does not buy from the industry at all today, and why.
The six paths: six different ways of looking past the obvious rivals for an idea nobody has tried.

What the strategy has to carry, once found:

A new line on the canvas: what it would offer, drawn against what the market offers today.
The four actions: what it stops doing and does less of, so it can afford what it raises and creates.
A tagline: one honest line a club president would understand and repeat back.

What the strategy has to pass, three tests read off the finished picture:

Focus. It concentrates on a few things instead of trying to be good at everything.
Divergence. Its shape is genuinely different from every rival's.
A tagline. It can be said in one honest line a club president would repeat.

And four questions, asked in that order, so that a failure at one is not rescued by the next: