Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The difference and why it matters

by Richard P. Rumelt

At that time, I worked for Phyllis Buwalda, who directed Future Mission Studies at JPL. Homeschooled on a ranch in Colorado, Phyllis had a tough, practical intellect that could see to the root of a problem. She was best known for her work on a model of the lunar surface.3 With this specification in place, JPL engineers and subcontractors were able to stop guessing and get to work. The lunar surface Phyllis described was hard and grainy, with slopes of no more than about fifteen degrees, scattered small stones, and boulders no larger than about two feet across spaced here and there. Looking at this specification for the first time, I was amazed. “Phyllis,” I said, “this looks a lot like the Southwestern desert.” “Yes, doesn’t it?” she said with a smile. “But,” I complained, “you really don’t know what the moon is like. Why write a spec saying it is like the local desert?” “This is what the smoother parts of the earth are like, so it is probably a pretty good guess as to what we’ll find on the moon if we stay away from the mountains.” “But, you really have no idea what the surface of the moon is like! It could be powder, or jagged needles.…” “Look,” she said, “the engineers can’t work without a specification. If it turns out to be a lot more difficult than this, we aren’t going to be spending much time on the moon anyway.” Her lunar specification wasn’t the truth—the truth was that we didn’t know. It was a strategically chosen proximate objective—one the engineers knew how t...