good-strategy-bad-strategy
Formulate and audit real strategy using Richard Rumelt''s "Good Strategy Bad Strategy": an honest diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action instead of goals, vision, and wishful thinking. Use when the user mentions "good strategy bad strategy", "strategy kernel", "diagnosis guiding policy coherent action", "our strategy is just goals", "strategic planning", "mission vs strategy", "annual plan", or "is this actually a strategy". Also trigger when auditing a strategy doc or pitch deck for fluff, turning a goal list into real strategy, formulating strategy for a product or company, or find
npx skills add wondelai/skills --skill good-strategy-bad-strategy --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
What it does
Formulates and audits strategy using Richard Rumelt's framework: an honest diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent actions to carry out the policy, replacing mere goals or vision with a working kernel.
How it works
The skill teaches identifying the kernel components: diagnosis that defines the critical challenge, a guiding policy that channels effort, and coherent actions that are coordinated, resource-backed, and tied to owners, resources, and dates. It emphasizes evaluating strategy decks for hallmarks of bad strategy (fluff, failure to face the challenge, goals mistaken for strategy, poor objectives) and using sources of power (leverage, proximate objectives, chain-link systems, design, focus, advantage) to decide where to act. It also provides detection and audit procedures for strategy documents and pitches, and recommends a step-by-step approach: diagnose, formulate policy, define coherent actions, test against evidence, and rewrite kernel when needed. See references sections for in-depth procedures and worked examples.
When to use it
Use when the user mentions phrases tied to good-strategy-bad-strategy, strategy kernel, diagnosis guiding policy coherent action, mission vs strategy, annual plan, or when auditing a strategy doc or pitch deck for fluff, or when turning a goal list into real strategy, or formulating strategy for a product or company. Also applies to finding leverage and proximate objectives and identifying sources of power.
What it can touch
It requires the Claude Code tool for analysis and drafting, and references procedures for evaluating strategy documents, including applying the kernel, detecting bad strategy, and leveraging sources of power to shape actions.
Caveats
The skill underscores that a kernel is not a mission, vision, or values preamble and that a strategy is judged by diagnosis, policy, and coherent actions, not by goal lists alone. It cautions against fluff and mislabeling goals as strategy and emphasizes explicit ownership, resources, and timelines for actions.
# Good Strategy Bad Strategy A framework for creating and auditing strategy, distilled from Richard Rumelt's *Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters*. Good strategy has a simple underlying logic — an honest diagnosis of the critical challenge, a guiding policy for overcoming it, and coherent actions that carry the policy out. Use this skill to detect the four hallmarks of bad strategy and to replace goal lists and vision decks with a working kernel. ## Core Principle **Strategy is coherent action backed by an honest diagnosis — not goals, vision, or wishful thinking.** A goal ("20% growth") names an ambition; a strategy explains how the ambition will be achieved given the actual obstacles. Bad strategy is not the absence of strategy but an active substitute for it: buzzword fluff, refusal to name the challenge, and laundry lists of initiatives. The heart of strategy work is choice — concentrating effort and resources on the one or two pivotal objectives whose accomplishment unlocks everything else. ## Scoring **Goal: 10/10.** Score strategies, plans, and strategy documents by walking the eight rows of the Quick Diagnostic and counting how many pass. Report th
- Core Principle
- Scoring
- Framework
- 1. The Kernel of Good Strategy
- 2. Detecting Bad Strategy
- 3. Sources of Power
- 4. Riding Dynamics and Fighting Inertia
- 5. Thinking Like a Strategist
- Common Mistakes
- Quick Diagnostic
- Further Reading
- About the Author
What does the good-strategy-bad-strategy skill do?
Formulate and audit real strategy using Richard Rumelt''s "Good Strategy Bad Strategy": an honest diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action instead of goals, vision, and wishful thinking. Use when the user mentions "good strategy bad strategy", "strategy kernel", "diagnosis guiding policy coherent action", "our strategy is just goals", "strategic planning", "mission vs strategy", "annual plan", or "is this actually a strategy". Also trigger when auditing a strategy doc or pitch deck for fluff, turning a goal list into real strategy, formulating strategy for a product or company, or find
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add wondelai/skills --skill good-strategy-bad-strategy --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From wondelai/skills, a repository with 1,835 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.