Technology Strategy Patterns

Chapter 2. Analysis

To use language is to enter into the territory of categories, which are as necessary as they are dangerous.

Rebecca Solnit, The Mother of All Questions

The only cost that matters is opportunity cost.

Larry Page

This chapter covers foundational patterns for analysis that you can broadly apply. They are MECE, Logic Tree, and Hypothesis.

MECE stands for “Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive.” It represents a kind of metapattern. It offers a quick way to check that the building blocks of your strategy work are valid and complete. I call it a metapattern because it doesn’t produce any direct output that you can drop right into your strategy like many of the others. It’s a light form of analysis that’s broadly applicable across all the other patterns we’ll explore. 

Logic Tree is used by strategy consultants as a simple tool for determining a set of relevant problems and possible causes. It helps organize your ideas, making quick work of examining any problem.

The Hypothesis pattern is a way of making a guess, based on some supporting suppositions and data, about what the root problem might be.

The patterns we’re starting with are the most abstract. These are tools for analysis that will act as the underpinnings of any strategy work.

In the world of strategy consulting, analysis of this kind is performed on what they call cases. A case is a particular industry problem to be solved, like a detective “on the case.” Job candidates for consultant positions ...