13. Strategy & Management¶

BOB treats strategy as structured, searchable data — not a slide deck you forget after the offsite. Strategy notes, decisions, and planning artifacts live as first-class vault entities, linked to the meetings and projects they drive.

This chapter covers: how decisions are captured; the tools BOB provides for strategic analysis and planning; management reporting rhythms; and how strategy connects downward to projects, campaigns, and daily work.

13.1 Strategy artifacts — what BOB stores¶

Two entity types anchor this module.

Strategy notes hold directional thinking: market positioning, where-to-play choices, growth bets, and annual priorities. They are authored notes, not generated summaries. BOB can draft them with you, but you own the content.

Decision-log entities are first-class records. Every significant decision — a new market, a pricing change, a hire above budget, a product pivot — deserves its own note with the date, the options considered, the reasoning, and the outcome. This is not optional: decisions logged in meeting notes get lost. A decision-log entry makes the reasoning searchable six months later.

Entity	What it captures	Linked to
Strategy note	Directional choices, positioning, growth priorities	OKR notes, project notes, campaigns
Decision-log	Date, options, rationale, outcome, owner	Meeting note where the decision was made

13.2 Decision support¶

BOB offers three different modes of decision support. Choose the one that fits the decision.

Skill	When to use it
`ask-boardroom`	You want a panel of perspectives — multiple advisor voices debating the options before you choose
`decision-frameworks`	You want a specific analytical framework applied: expected value, regret minimisation, pre-mortem
`ask-zeus`	You want 1:1 coaching that draws on your personal vault context

Using `ask-boardroom`¶

Describe the decision and the options you're considering. BOB assembles a virtual panel — each advisor brings a different lens (operator, investor, customer, contrarian). The panel debates the options; you read the positions and decide. Useful for high-stakes, low-reversibility choices where you want to stress-test your thinking before committing.

Using `decision-frameworks`¶

Name the framework or describe the decision type. BOB applies the structure and walks you through it:

Framework	Best for
Expected value	Decisions where you can quantify outcomes and probabilities
Regret minimisation	Long-range, identity-level choices
Pre-mortem	Before committing — surface failure modes in advance

After running either skill, log the decision in a decision-log entity. Include the framework used and the key trade-offs. Future-you will thank you.

13.3 Market and competitive analysis¶

Skill	What it produces
`market-sizing-analysis`	TAM, SAM, SOM — using top-down, bottom-up, and value-theory methods
`competitive-battlecard`	Sales-ready one-pager: positioning vs. a named competitor, win themes, trap questions, talk tracks
`research-company`	Full company intelligence report: competitive positioning, industry signals, USP analysis, AI/automation angles
`deep-research`	Multi-source research report with citations — OpenAI, DeepSeek, or Perplexity back-end

market-sizing-analysis and research-company are your starting points for a new market or a new competitive threat. Use competitive-battlecard when your sales team needs a quick-reference tool for a specific competitor. Use deep-research when you need cited, multi-source analysis — it requires an API key.

Research workflow¶

Step	What you do	What BOB does	Where it's saved
1. Define the question	State the market, competitor, or topic	Clarifies scope; confirms source method	—
2. Run the analysis	Approve the scope	Researches, structures, and writes the report	Vault — `{resource.root}`
3. Link findings	Tag the note as a strategy input	—	—
4. Decide	Use the output in `ask-boardroom` or `decision-frameworks`	—	Decision-log entity

13.4 Planning rhythms¶

BOB supports structured annual and quarterly planning through two skills and one recurring playbook suite.

OKRs¶

okr-frameworks writes OKRs, aligns team goals, and creates a measurement framework for quarterly tracking. Give it your priorities for the period and it returns draft Objectives with Key Results, scored for specificity and measurability. Edit them before finalising — the draft is a starting point, not a mandate.

kpi-dashboard-design designs the dashboard that tracks those KPIs. It selects metrics, defines thresholds, and specifies the visualisation layout. The output is a design brief; operating-dashboard then builds the canvas.

Annual and quarterly planning¶

The plan-to-perform value chain maps the full planning cycle:

Stage	Skills / playbooks
Assess current state	`business-baseline`, `owner-priority-system`, `market-sizing-analysis`
Strategise	`strategy-frameworks`, `growth-engine`, `growth-scaling-playbook`
Plan	`okr-frameworks` + Plan my next 12 months playbook
Budget	`startup-financial-modeling`
Execute	`ship-decisions`, `delegation`
Review	`business-pulse`, `weekly-review`, `vault-maturity-score`

For a quarterly reset, run the Quarterly Replan playbook. It chains assessment, OKR review, and replanning into a single guided workflow.

`strategy-frameworks`¶

When a decision requires a formal strategic canvas — where-to-play/how-to-win, beachhead market selection, crossing-the-chasm positioning — use strategy-frameworks. It applies the chosen framework and produces a written analysis. Outputs link to the relevant strategy note.

13.5 Management reporting¶

Management reporting connects strategy to daily numbers. Three skills serve different time horizons.

Skill	Time horizon	What it produces
`business-pulse`	Weekly	A snapshot of the business: pipeline health, cash position, open issues, team capacity
`operating-dashboard`	Ongoing	A JSON Canvas file showing live business state across all modules
`kpi-dashboard-design`	Setup	The design spec for a KPI dashboard — run once, revisit quarterly

`business-pulse` workflow¶

Step	What you do	What BOB does	Where it's saved
1. Trigger the pulse	Ask for the weekly business pulse	Reads the vault: pipeline, tasks, financials, open issues	—
2. Review the output	Check the snapshot	—	Vault — `{company.management}`
3. Act on flags	Follow up on red items	—	Task notes

Good practice: run business-pulse on the same day each week. Consistent timing makes the outputs comparable over time.

`operating-dashboard`¶

The dashboard is a canvas file generated from business-baseline source data. Refresh it after any significant change — a new client, a strategic pivot, a headcount change. It does not auto-update; you trigger the refresh.

13.6 How strategy links downward¶

A strategy note that doesn't connect to execution is decoration. BOB's data model is designed to close the gap.

Strategy artifact	Links to
Strategy note	OKR notes, project notes, campaign briefs
Decision-log	Meeting note (where the decision was made), project note (if it changes scope)
OKR	Tasks in `{output.tasks}`, sprint plans
KPI	`operating-dashboard`, `business-pulse` output

When you create a project or a campaign, link it to the strategy note that motivated it. When you close a decision, link the decision-log entry to the meeting where it was discussed. These links make the vault navigable — six months later you can trace why a project exists and what decision authorised it.

ship-decisions sits at the boundary between strategy and execution. Use it when a product or process change is ready to ship and you need a structured go/no-go: it applies reversibility analysis (one-way versus two-way doors) and surfaces the technical-debt trade-offs.

13.7 Skills serving this module¶

Skill	Value chain stage
`market-sizing-analysis`	assess
`business-baseline`	assess
`owner-priority-system`	assess
`strategy-frameworks`	strategise
`growth-engine`	strategise
`okr-frameworks`	plan
`startup-financial-modeling`	budget
`ship-decisions`	execute
`ask-boardroom`	cross-cutting (decide)
`decision-frameworks`	cross-cutting (decide)
`competitive-battlecard`	cross-cutting (market)
`research-company`	cross-cutting (market)
`deep-research`	cross-cutting (market)
`kpi-dashboard-design`	cross-cutting (reporting)
`operating-dashboard`	cross-cutting (reporting)
`business-pulse`	review

Playbooks: Plan my next 12 months, Quarterly Replan, Business Owner Operating System, Weekly Business Review, Growth opportunity mapping

13.8 Good practices¶

Log decisions in decision-log entities, not in meeting notes. Meeting notes scroll away; decision-log entries are searchable forever.
Link strategy notes to the projects and campaigns they drive. Without links, strategy and execution live in separate silos.
Run ask-boardroom before committing to a one-way-door decision. The cost is one prompt; the benefit is stress-tested reasoning on record.
Refresh operating-dashboard after significant changes, not on a fixed schedule. A stale dashboard is worse than no dashboard — it creates false confidence.
Keep OKRs short. Three objectives, three key results each. More than that and the quarter becomes unmanageable.

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