Ways NOT to develop tech strategy

Nilofer Merchant, a Los Gatos-based consultant, maintains an interesting blog on the issues that face her Silicon Valley clients. Drawing on her consulting and earlier industry experience as a marketing manager at Apple, Autodesk and GoLive, her company’s blog (like her firm Rubicon Consulting) offers marketing and other stategy advice to local companies.

An insightful recent post is her from-the-trenches reminder of five things that can go wrong in strategy development:

1. The Blame Game
2. Lack of Team Involvement
3. Here We Are — But Where Are We?
4. Execution
5. Decision-Making

A review of this list shows that some of these problems start at the beginning — in deciding who gets a say on making the strategy — while other come at the end, in implementation.

This seems like a useful checklist for anyone having to develop strategy for an IT or other firm. In general, the strategy thread on the Rubicon blog looks like a collection of advice worth monitoring.