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Execution · Plan

Coherent action set

Turns a decided strategy into a small number of moves that reinforce each other. The word doing the work is coherent — actions that each belong to a different strategy are the commonest failure in the discipline.

The printable canvas and the handoff into Claude Code are part of a paid plan. See what a plan includes. It needs the Claude desktop app on this machine, and your team and the prompt library already installed in that project — we cannot see your disk, so open it there.

Stage
04 Plan
Works at
All levels
Maturity
Early startup → Large organisation
Time
Half a day

What it is

The third part of Rumelt's kernel made concrete: a small set of coordinated moves that follow from the guiding policy and reinforce one another. Coherence is the whole test — a list of good initiatives that do not fit together is not a strategy, however well each is executed.

Derivation from the policy
Each action should follow obviously from the guiding policy. If it needs explaining, it belongs to a different strategy.
Coherence
Actions should make each other easier, or at minimum not compete. Two initiatives drawing on the same scarce capability in opposite directions destroy value.
Concentration
A small number, resourced properly. Spreading effort across fifteen initiatives is the reliable way to achieve none of them.
Sequence
What must happen before what. Dependencies determine feasibility more than effort estimates do.
Ownership and measure
A named owner and a way of knowing it worked, per action.
What stops
The existing activity that ends to make room. Without this the plan is additive and therefore fictional.
The mistake people makeIf the strategy is not actually agreed, this produces a well-formatted list of activity that will be delivered and change nothing. Coherence cannot be manufactured downstream of an unmade decision.
What it’s forThe strategy is agreed and needs turning into a small number of sequenced moves.
What it’s not forThe strategy is not agreed, or you already have a plan that is not being executed. Another plan will not help.

How you run it

  1. Start from the guiding policyEach action should be an obvious consequence of it. If you have to explain the connection, it is not an action from this strategy.
  2. Cap it at nineMore than nine and none of them happen. The cap is not arbitrary — it is roughly what a leadership team can genuinely hold attention on for a year.
  3. Test coherence pairwiseDo these actions make each other easier or compete for the same people and money? Actions that undercut each other are worse than either alone.
  4. Sequence rather than paralleliseWhat must happen first for the others to work? Most plans start everything at once and finish nothing.
  5. Name what stopsNew actions need capacity, and it comes from somewhere. A plan that only adds is a wish list with dates.

The prompt

Two ways to run it

Run this tool in your own Claude

The short prompt starts your partner against the library on your disk. The long one carries everything with it and needs nothing installed.

🔒 Prompt locked

Everything above is free — what this tool is, what it is for, what it is not for, and how to run it as a workshop. Three tool prompts a month are free with an account; beyond three, and for the printable canvas, it is the paid part.

See plans — from £19 a month

Your playbook

It lands in the earliest stage this tool suits. Move it on the Playbook page.

You’ll need

  • A settled strategy with its guiding policy
  • Honest capacity data — what the business can actually absorb
  • Owners in the room, not represented

You’ll end up with

  • No more than nine moves, sequenced
  • Owner, cost, dependency and success measure for each
  • A list of current initiatives that do not fit and should stop

Runs well with

AI risk classification and governanceAlliance and partnership designAssumption logBackcasting