Good strategy needs a process. Great strategists know when to break it.
Strategists like to pretend they do not use process. The experienced ones often use more of it than anybody else. They have simply internalised it. They know which questions usually matter, which gaps will cause problems later and which framework is useful without consciously announcing the framework to themselves. That is still process.
Process reduces rework
The useful purpose of a strategic process is simple. It helps you reach a conclusion without forgetting something important, remembering it later and rebuilding half the work. Frameworks help for the same reason. They organise attention. A 3C framework is not valuable because the client deserves a slide called Competitor.
It is valuable because somebody should probably understand the competitive context before deciding how the brand wants to position itself. The framework supports the thinking. It does not need to become the presentation.
Process becomes bad when completion replaces judgement
The danger begins when the organisation formalises every step into a box that must be ticked. Now the strategist is no longer asking whether this piece of work is useful. They are asking whether the workflow allows them to proceed. Some assignments need deep diagnosis, audience work, competitive work and several stages of strategic development.
Some do not. Sometimes you already know the answer well enough to write it down and move on. Making the strategist complete twelve modules in that situation does not create rigour. It creates bureaucracy.
Frameworks should not make every problem look the same
A process should standardise quality and philosophy more than output. An agency can agree what good strategic work looks like. It can agree on the broad principles it believes in. That does not mean every social brief should become a positioning exercise. Different problems need different methods. A strategy system should help people reach the appropriate tool faster, not force all work through the same one.
Great strategists break process for a reason
Experienced judgement often recognises patterns early. Sometimes a strategist reads the brief and has a strong sense of where the answer will land. That instinct may come from having seen a similar problem many times. The useful response is not to worship the instinct or suppress it. Treat it as a hypothesis.
Do enough of the process to test whether the pattern really applies. If the evidence confirms it, move faster. If the work exposes something different, change your mind. That is a very different thing from skipping steps because you are senior and impatient.
Rumelt’s strategy kernel tests the relationship between the challenge, the approach and coordinated action. Use that as a check when shortening a process: can the team still explain those relationships, or has it merely removed the uncomfortable questions?
Structure and flexibility belong together
This is one of the reasons I dislike the false choice between rigid process and brilliant human judgement. Good process creates a reliable floor. Judgement decides when the situation deserves something different. The stronger the strategist, the more intelligently they can move between the two. A useful system should make the normal path easy, make the standards visible and still leave room for somebody to say: we do not need all of this here. That is not a failure of the process. It is the process doing its job.
Use Mirel’s workflow as structure for the work and keep responsibility for choosing the appropriate depth with the strategist.