Once your strategy hypothesis has been presented and validated, it’s time to get on to implementation. But implementation in any organization requires buy-in and understanding from a lot of people.

The recommendation phase is the process of establishing common understanding and buy-in, so that implementation can proceed.

The good news is that you have gone through a thorough process already, if you’ve followed the seven steps have a good audit trail of information and ideas all the way from the original problem definition, and you’ve also taken the time to keep others involved along the way. If you’ve done a good job with the earlier phases, the recommendation is easier, because the key people have some exposure to the ideas, and most of the difficult questions have been asked and answered through research and validation follow-up.

The fundamental task of the recommendations phase is to drive action. That means your recommendations need to be clear, simple to explain, and that the value must also be clear. Most strategy processes are followed by a corporate budgeting cycle, in which funds are allocated to new and existing projects. New projects by definition have a harder time, because they are more risky than continuing to invest in projects that already produce revenue. That means that the financial arguments need to be as clear as possible.

Here’s a check-list of the elements of a great recommendation:

1. Project problem statement
2. Background (keep it short)
3. Market model—analysis of existing conditions in the market
4. Competitive situation
5. Scenarios that represent possible future outcomes
6. List of proposed actions or approaches
7. Indication of the recommended proposal
8. Estimation of resource requirements and operational factors associated with the recommendeed approach
9. Risks associated with the recommended approach, along with risk mitigation proposal
10. Factors that might change the strategy and how to deal with them
11. Summary page of key decisions required.

There’s some benefit in creating a richer document to go with the strategy that contains the outputs from other parts of the project – environmental scan, research plan, research results, hypothesis presentation, and validation questions and answers. Such a document should probably not be widely circulated, but it may be useful for the most senior decisionmakers either for their own use or for review by their staffs. The danger with such a document is that it can be used to re-open old questions, and to delay a decision. This should not happen if the appropriate people have been close to the process throughout.

Part of “asking for the order” has to do with getting some kind of operational decision made. Here are some indications that your strategy will go somewhere:

• Someone is assigned to own the project going forward
• The project is added to the list for the upcoming budget cycle
• The project is endorsed by the CEO or business line manager who has the budget to make it happen
• There’s a concrete next step agreed upon and assigned.

It’s not enough for people to like what you offer and to agree in principle. The great challenge for strategy teams is that they typically do not own the resources to make things happen. It’s therefore extremely important to work consciously on the process of transferring a strategy project to an implementation team.

If you own your own business, or lead a business, you can apply these same techniques. The process helps to guide the people you assign, and as the business leader you can drive change directly.

I hope these short descriptions have given you some practical insight into a proven way to develop strategy. You will have seen that while there are no guarantees, a rational and organized process significantly increases the chance of creating real positive change in your business.