Distinguish a winning aspiration from a mission statement or a generic growth ambition.
Leadership & Management
Strategic Choice Cascade Using the Playing to Win Framework
Apply the Playing to Win cascade of winning aspiration, where to play, how to win, capabilities and management systems to build and stress-test a coherent business strategy.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Many strategy documents list goals, initiatives and budgets without ever stating what the organisation has chosen not to do, which is why so many plans collapse under the first difficult trade-off. The Playing to Win framework, developed by Lafley and Martin, treats strategy as a cascade of five interlocking choices: a winning aspiration that defines what winning means, a where-to-play choice about markets, segments and channels, a how-to-win choice about the basis of competitive advantage, the capabilities that choice requires, and the management systems that sustain it. This course works through each box of the cascade in sequence, using the 'what would have to be true' test to check whether a choice is realistic rather than aspirational. By the end, participants will have built a cascade for a live business issue, reverse-engineered a competitor's implied strategy from its visible actions, and pressure-tested their own logic against credible alternatives before presenting a defensible strategic choice to a senior audience.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Define where-to-play choices across markets, segments, channels and geographies.
Articulate a how-to-win choice that names a specific source of competitive advantage.
Identify the must-have capabilities a chosen strategy requires and where gaps exist.
Design management systems and metrics that reinforce rather than undermine the chosen strategy.
Apply the 'what would have to be true' test to check whether a strategic choice is credible.
Reverse-engineer a competitor's strategy cascade from its observable market behaviour.
Who Should Attend
Business unit leaders responsible for setting or refreshing a unit strategy.
Strategy and corporate development managers preparing board strategy papers.
Marketing directors defining where-to-play choices across segments and channels.
General managers who must defend a strategic plan to senior leadership.
Consultants and internal advisers who facilitate strategy choice workshops.
Functional leaders translating a corporate strategy into their own priorities.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01The Logic of Cascading Strategic Choices
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Strategy as an Integrated Set of Choices
- Explain why a list of initiatives and budgets is not the same as a coherent strategy.
- Map the five boxes of the Playing to Win cascade and how each choice constrains the next.
- Distinguish strategic choices from operational plans, tactics and annual targets.
- Identify the strategic question a specific business issue actually requires answering.
Session 2Testing Choices with What Would Have to Be True
- Apply the 'what would have to be true' technique to surface hidden assumptions in a choice.
- Generate credible alternative cascades before committing to a preferred strategy.
- Design simple tests or evidence checks for the riskiest assumptions in a cascade.
- Recognise when a strategic choice is aspiration dressed up as analysis.
02Winning Aspiration and Where-to-Play Choices
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Defining a Winning Aspiration
- Write a winning aspiration that states what winning means for the organisation and by when.
- Differentiate a winning aspiration from a mission, vision or purpose statement.
- Align a winning aspiration with realistic resource commitments and time horizons.
- Test whether an aspiration is specific enough to rule out some future choices.
Session 2Choosing Where to Play
- Segment markets by customer, geography, channel and price point to frame where-to-play options.
- Assess the attractiveness of each segment using structural and competitive criteria.
- Decide which segments and channels the organisation will deliberately not pursue.
- Sequence where-to-play choices when resources cannot support every attractive segment.
03How-to-Win Choices and Competitive Advantage
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Sources of Competitive Advantage
- Distinguish cost-based, differentiation-based and access-based sources of advantage.
- Articulate a how-to-win choice as a specific, falsifiable statement rather than a slogan.
- Reverse-engineer a competitor's how-to-win choice from its pricing and product decisions.
- Check consistency between the chosen how-to-win and the earlier where-to-play choice.
Session 2Stress-Testing the How-to-Win Choice
- War-game likely competitor and customer reactions to a proposed how-to-win choice.
- Identify the conditions under which a chosen advantage would erode over time.
- Compare the chosen how-to-win against at least two credible strategic alternatives.
- Decide what evidence would prove the how-to-win choice wrong within an agreed period.
04Capabilities, Systems and Cascading the Strategy
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Must-Have Capabilities and Capability Gaps
- List the must-have capabilities implied by the chosen where-to-play and how-to-win choices.
- Audit current capabilities against the list to identify build, buy or partner gaps.
- Prioritise capability investments against their contribution to the chosen advantage.
- Sequence capability building so early wins fund later, larger investments.
Session 2Management Systems and Organisational Cascade
- Design management systems, metrics and reviews that reinforce the chosen strategy.
- Cascade the strategic choice framework down to business unit and functional plans.
- Identify management systems that quietly reward behaviour the strategy is meant to change.
- Present a completed cascade and its supporting evidence to a senior decision-making audience.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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