reph

Templates · Strategy & leadership

Strategy doc template

Diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent actions (Rumelt kernel)

Start with this template →Sign in

Opens on reph with the template ready to start. No account needed; sign in to keep your document.

Use it when

A company or team needs one written bet: what is really going on, how it will respond, and what it will stop doing as a result

Who it's for

ExecutiveFounderManager

Part of a kit

Leadership operating rhythm, step 1 of 6. Strategy, OKRs, quarterly plan, decision memos, the board pack and the monthly company update.

Filled example

The template filled in for a made-up company, so you can see what good looks like.

Calder 2027 strategy: win the finance team, not the whole company

Author: Leah Marsh (CEO, Calder) · Date: November 4, 2026

Executive summary

We are losing horizontal deals to bigger suites that bundle "good enough" planning tools for free, but we win almost every deal where the finance team is the buyer. In 2027 we stop selling company-wide and become the planning tool finance teams choose, with integrations and workflows the suites will not build.

Diagnosis

Our win rate is 61% when the CFO's team leads the evaluation and 14% when IT or operations leads it. Bundled suites now reach 70% of our prospects before we do, and they win on price whenever the buyer sees planning as a feature rather than a job.

Guiding policy

We will win on depth for finance teams (close-to-plan workflows, ERP integrations, auditability) and will not compete on breadth or price for company-wide planning.

Coherent actions

Action Owner Timeline
Ship native NetSuite and Sage Intacct sync VP Engineering Q1 to Q2
Retarget marketing to finance leaders only CMO Q1
Finance-led sales motion with CFO references VP Sales Q1 to Q4
Audit trail and approvals as standard on every plan Head of Product Q2

What we will not do

  • No free tier aimed at company-wide adoption.
  • No HR or sales-capacity planning modules in 2027.
  • No RFPs led by IT where finance is not a decision-maker.

Bets & assumptions

Assumption How we will know Check by
Finance teams pay a premium for ERP depth Win rate holds above 55% at the new price June 2027
Finance-led deals expand to other teams later 25% of 2027 cohort expands within a year December 2027
Suites will not ship deep ERP sync this year Quarterly competitor review Every quarter

Metrics

Finance-led share of pipeline
38%
target 70%
Win rate, finance-led deals
61%
target above 55% at the new price
Net revenue retention
104%
target 115%

Risks

  • A suite acquires a finance-native competitor and bundles it, which would break the diagnosis.
  • Narrowing the market shrinks pipeline faster than win rate rises. We will watch quarterly new pipeline and stop narrowing if it falls more than 20%.

Review cadence

The leadership team reviews this doc in May and November. Any bet whose check fails triggers an earlier review within two weeks.

The template

Show the blank template

Strategy doc

Author: [your name] · Date: [date]

Executive summary

The diagnosis and the bet, in a paragraph. A reader who stops here should still get the shape of the argument.

Diagnosis

The single most important fact about the situation (competitive, market, or internal) that everything else follows from. Not a list of challenges; the one that matters most.

Guiding policy

The overall approach for dealing with the diagnosis: a stance, not a to-do list. "We will win on X, not compete on Y" is a policy; "improve everything" is not.

Coherent actions

Steps that reinforce each other because they all follow from the guiding policy. A reviewer should be able to trace each one back to it.

Action Owner Timeline

What we will not do

The corollary of a real strategy: resourcing choices this doc rules out. If nothing is here, this isn't a strategy yet.

Bets & assumptions

What has to be true for this to work, so it's checkable later instead of quietly assumed forever.

Assumption How we will know Check by

Metrics

The few leading numbers that will tell you, ahead of the outcome, whether the bet is paying off. Today's value now, the target in the delta.

Leading metric 1
0
target 0
Leading metric 2
0
target 0
Lagging outcome
0
target 0

Risks

What could invalidate the diagnosis or make the guiding policy wrong.

Review cadence

When and how this gets revisited. Strategy that's never re-examined calcifies into dogma.

Questions

What makes this a strategy and not a plan?
It names one diagnosis and a guiding policy, and it rules things out; a plan lists work
How often should it change?
Revisit it on a fixed cadence, usually twice a year, or when a bet's leading metric breaks
Who should write it?
One accountable author, with the leadership team as reviewers

Fill it with your agent

Connect Claude to reph over MCP, then paste this. The draft arrives as suggestions you accept or reject section by section. How to connect Claude.

Find my reph doc "Strategy doc" with search_docs, then read it with read_doc. Draft Diagnosis and Bets from the customer research, win/loss notes, competitive analysis and metrics linked in the doc, with actions that trace back to the guiding policy. Leave the guiding policy and What we will not do for me. File it with suggest_edit, one replace_section op per section (heading line kept) so each can be accepted alone. Ask each open question (assumptions without supporting evidence) with add_comment quoting that section's heading line, then call request_review with a one-line summary.

Related templates

OKRs

Objectives and measurable key results for a period

ExecutiveManagerProduct manager

Quarterly plan

Priorities, capacity, milestones and risks for the quarter

ManagerExecutiveProduct manager

Decision memo

Frame a decision, options and a recommendation for sign-off

ExecutiveManagerFounder

Board pack

Quarterly board meeting pre-read: metrics, decisions needed, risks, financials, asks

FounderExecutive

Company monthly update

What shipped, the numbers, wins and people news, ready to send as an email newsletter

FounderExecutiveCommunicationsOperations

Competitive analysis

Compare competitors on features, pricing and positioning

Product managerMarketerExecutive

Start with this template →Sign in