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Overview Expansion StrategyExpansion strategy builds competitive positions by identifying and utilizing opportunities in the environment. Expansion strategy is necessary because existing positions are constantly degraded by change. Expansion strategy is built around a four-step process called the Progress Cycle. The methods of expansion strategy are both exploratory and scalable. They are essentially experiments used to tackle small obstacles and explorations in long campaigns. Many of the rules of expansion strategy focus on controlling the costs and risks of the experiments. One of the fundamental rules of front-line strategy is that we cannot create opportunities. Opportunities can be created only by the competitive environment. Opportunities exist as "openings" in the environment that allow your people to advance your organization's position in the direction of your mission. These openings are usually small, but by taking advantage of the small openings, your people eventually position themselves for the big advances you want. Expansion strategy provides a set of technical tools that allow you to identify openings that would normally be overlooked. You must complete a cycle of four steps to make an expansion or advance. These steps can be defined as listening, aiming, moving, and claiming. If any step in this Progress Cycle is missing, no advance is possible. Listening identifies opportunities. Aiming prioritizes these opportunities, identifying the smallest, easiest, and least costly moves that take your people where you want them to go. Moving requires responding appropriately to the situation. Claiming identifies the potential, the boundaries, the ownership, and the methods for utilizing a new position. Both aiming and moving depend on many of the more advanced and detailed skills of situational strategy. The Progress Cycle gains power with speed and repetition. It is a standard model both for large-scale advances (generally referred to as "campaigns") and for smaller-scale advances. Each step in the Progress Cycle (listen, aim, move, claim) can be broken down into a number of separate smaller progress cycles. Properly used, this technique of breaking steps into parts is especially useful for overcoming obstacles. |