Frameworks

Fifteen explainers for the strategy, planning, and prioritization frameworks that actually get used. Each page covers origin, when to use, how to apply, a worked example, and the framework's known weaknesses.

Strategy & analysis

• SWOT Analysis

  Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats — when SWOT is genuinely useful and when it produces a list nobody acts on.

• Porter's Five Forces

  Industry attractiveness analyzed through five competitive pressures, with a worked example and known weaknesses.

• PESTLE Analysis

  Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental scan of the external macro environment.

• Value Chain Analysis

  Porter's value chain: primary and support activities that together produce competitive advantage.

• BCG Growth-Share Matrix

  Boston Consulting Group's portfolio matrix — stars, cash cows, dogs, and question marks — and when it still applies.

• Ansoff Matrix

  Igor Ansoff's growth matrix: market penetration, market development, product development, diversification.

Business model & product

• Business Model Canvas

  Alexander Osterwalder's nine-block model for describing how a business creates, delivers, and captures value.

• Lean Canvas

  Ash Maurya's one-page startup model — a Lean Startup-friendly adaptation of the Business Model Canvas.

• Jobs To Be Done

  Customers "hire" products to do specific jobs. JTBD is the framework that makes the job, not the customer demographic, the unit of analysis.

• Kano Model

  Classify product features by their effect on customer satisfaction — must-haves, performance, delighters, and indifferent.

• North Star Metric

  The single metric that captures the value a product delivers to its customers — and the discipline of building around it.

Marketing

• 4 Ps of Marketing Mix

  Product, Price, Place, Promotion — the four classic levers of marketing strategy.

Execution

• OKRs

  Objectives and Key Results — the goal-setting framework popularized by Andy Grove and adopted by Google, Intel, and Stripe.

• RACI Matrix

  Responsibility assignment with Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed roles for cross-team work.

• Eisenhower Matrix

  The urgent/important matrix for prioritization, attributed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.