What Is a “Strategy Alternative Matrix” (SAM)?
It’s conventional wisdom in brainstorming that you never proceed with your first idea. You need to spend a little more time churning out a selection of ideas to see if even greater genius strikes. Same goes for strategy. But when you hit upon the best strategy, it’s not always immediately obvious.
This is where the Strategy Alternative Matrix (SAM) comes in. Developed by Peter Compo, PhD and described in his book, The Emergent Approach to Strategy, the SAM is a tool to stress test multiple proposed strategies before building out a detailed framework for the winning direction.
I recommend reading the book if you want to do these on your own. If you’re reading this because we suggested going through this exercise with you, the following overview has everything you need to know.
What are the benefits of a SAM?
Why do we incorporate this exercise into our strategic planning? And why should you?
It gives a high level overview of the challenge at hand and possibilities to overcome it
Which makes it easier to discuss and debate among teams, and ultimately reach a path forward
The process can integrate consideration of multiple futures, since you never know exactly what the future holds
It’s scalable: can be used for organizations of all sizes and can solve problems big or small
It can bring together otherwise disparate models and data sets, such as financial modeling and market research
You can reuse this process to reassess the chosen strategy and pivot to a superior alternative as necessary
How do you prepare a SAM?
First, let’s quickly define strategy. According to Compo, strategy is a central rule within a framework that unifies all decisions and actions to overcome the main bottleneck to achieving aspirations.
So before you get to work identifying a strategy via the SAM, you need to have…
A clearly defined aspiration
An understanding of the bottlenecks that hinder achievement of the aspiration
That might be easier said than done and can entail an entire initial exploration process. To keep this article on topic, we’ll assume these are well known and agreed upon within your organization.
You now have the top portion of the SAM more or less filled out.
Now you need to develop a few viable strategies to break the bottleneck to reaching your ambition.
The simplest example scenario used in The Emergent Approach is that of some grandparents choosing a route to get from their home to their grandchildren’s. They come up with three options: take the train, drive on the highway, or take backroads.
Yes, I scanned the diagram from the book with my phone. Sorry it looks like this.
Each possibility is measured against fitness criteria. These are the most important variables that affect the viability of a strategy. An assessment is made for how each strategy will fare against each fitness criterion. You can see in the simple example how the matrix elucidates the pros and cons of each alternative.
Note how there is no particular standard type of data included in each assessment. The assessments could include monetary sums, timelines, numbers over time, qualitative or subjective results, etc.
Here is an example from the book that considers strategies for a courier to enter a new market:
This detailed SAM is more like what yours would look like if you work with us.
A fully-featured SAM includes space to fill out more specifics of the strategy frameworks being considered.
This is far from all of the information you need to execute any of the proposed strategy frameworks. But it gives just the right amount of information to foresee possible outcomes and debate the proper course of action in such a complex endeavor.
Eventually the strategy will need to change. Maybe circumstances were not as you predicted. Or maybe your strategy was a success, you broke the bottleneck, and now need to adjust focus on new challenges. Your initial SAM is the perfect starting place for evolving your approach.
Why does a “creative” agency even bother with this stuff? And what makes you think you’re any good at it?
This is the kind of question we get from people who ask us to simply “make a logo” or “run some ads on Instagram.” Well, what purpose does a logo serve? Who are the ads for and what do you want those people to do? All of these components of a brand or marketing plan have some kind of purpose.
A strategy gives them a shared purpose, and imposes constraints on our creativity that actually helps the process.
Crafting a strategy requires creativity. You cannot imagine a novel approach to any situation without an imagination. Sometimes it helps to have the non-creatives come in to collaborate and debate our proposals. We have no problem conceding to the cold hard logic and reasoning of your CFO… if they happen to have a good point.
It's good practice to analyze our ideas. But the best ideas aren’t going to come from those who are prone to over-analysis.
As Michael Porter puts it, “Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different."
If you’re looking for some help in applying adaptive strategy design to work in your business––to make a real difference––you now know who to talk to.