The Strategy Space
Vistaly offers four types of strategic cards that form the building blocks of your strategy stack.
Startegy cards are separated into two categories:
Context Cards
Strategic Context Cards provide structure to your workspace and help align GTM and Product Teams on what matters most.
Long-term Strategic Context Card
A Long-term Strategic Context Card, like a Vision or Mission, represent the enduring organizational direction. They are the stable, overarching purpose that guides all work.
- Provide long-term direction that spans multiple years
- Align all teams across the organization around common aspirations
- Serve as the foundation lens for downstream strategic decisions
- Create a shared language for discussing organizational purpose
Popular Terms:
- Vision Statement (Default in Vistaly)
- Mission Statement
- Strategic Pillar
Considerations when Crafting
The following are common components of a Vision/Mission to consider when crafting one.
Clear Diagnosis:
- Identifies the critical challenge your organization exists to address
- Names the obstacles that must be overcome to succeed
- Serves as the foundation for your mission
Guiding Policy:
- Provides direction without prescribing specific actions
- Creates advantage by leveraging your organization’s unique strengths
- Excludes certain paths, helping focus organizational energy
Example
Take a look at this example to see how a clear diagnosis and guiding policy can be incorporated.
Acme Health
We will create a world where everyone has access to personalized healthcare that prevents illness before it occurs. We will revolutionize healthcare delivery through AI-powered predictive action that enables proactive, personalized care for all.
In this example:
- The organization exists to provide personalized healthcare that knows you and is able to prevent illness before it occurs. This is the foundational purpose of this company, and it positions itself against the status quo.
- They take a stance on how they will achieve this vision through AI-powered predictive action. This acts as the guiding policy.
Near-term Strategic Context Card
A Near-term Strategic Context Card, like an Objective, bridges the gap between long-term vision and actual execution work. These represent the tactical focus areas your team is pursuing in the current time period (typically quarterly or bi-annually).
Popular Terms:
- Objective (Default in Vistaly)
- Initiative
- Narrative
- Strategy
If you utilize a goal setting framework like OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), the Near-term strategic context in that framework is the Objective component.
Pro Tip 💡: Depending on the questions answered during onboarding, Near-term Strategic Context cards may be disabled by default. You can enabled that at any time in Card Settings.
Considerations when Crafting
Crafting clear objectives gives teams the necessary context to execute effectively.
- Specific Challenge Diagnosis: Understanding of the specific challenge at hand and a compelling “why” teams can rally around.
- Clear Directional Approach: Establishes boundaries for acceptable solutions and builds on existing organizational strengths.
- Focused Action Areas: Concentrates resources where they’ll have maximum impact
Example
Compare these examples while referencing the considerations above.
Weak Objective
Enhance our customer experience platform to drive growth and satisfaction
Strong Objective
Challenge: Mid-market SaaS customers experience a 32% drop-off during onboarding due to integration complexity, which competitors are exploiting with simpler alternatives.
Approach: Design an onboarding flow with a “15-minute to value” guarantee, simplifying the user interface while leveraging our advanced configuration engine.
Measurement Cards
While context cards provide direction, Measurement Cards track progress with quantifiable metrics. These cards add the crucial “how will we know we’ve succeeded?” component to your strategy.
Persistent Measurement Cards
Persistent-measurement Cards track ongoing metrics that remain relevant over extended periods. They typically don’t have end dates and are continually monitored.
Popular terms used to communicate this concept:
- Key Performance Indicator – KPI (Vistaly Default)
- Business Metric
- Health Metric
- Dashboard Metric
Examples
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) – Business
- Description: Total value of recurring revenue normalized to an annual amount
- Formula: Monthly Recurring Revenue × 12
- Source: Hubspot
Time to First Value – Product
- Description: Average time between user signup and creating their first workflow
- Formula: Average(First Workflow Event Timestamp - Signup Timestamp)
- Source: Posthog
KPI statuses
KPIs support statuses that are automatically calculated when threasholds are set.
| Stage | Commitment | Description |
|---|---|---|
| In Bounds | Within acceptable parameters | The KPI measurement is currently within the defined threshold range, indicating healthy performance. |
| Out of Bounds | Outside acceptable parameters | The KPI measurement has crossed a defined threshold boundary, requiring attention and potential intervention. |
Time-bound Measurement Cards
Time-bound-measurement Cards measure success for specific objectives within a defined timeframe. They have clear start and end dates with target values to achieve.
Popular terms used to communicate this concept:
- Outcome (Vistaly Default)
- Key Result
- Goal
- Rock
Outcome Statuses
Outcomes support the following statuses to communicate commitment and risk:
| Stage | Commitment | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Uncommitted | No official commitment | The outcome has been identified but not yet formally committed to by the team or organization. |
| At Risk | Committed but endangered | Progress toward the outcome is threatened by obstacles, delays, or resource constraints. |
| Progressing | Committed with active work | Work toward achieving the outcome is underway with noticeable progress, but not yet complete. |
| On Track | Committed and proceeding well | The outcome is being pursued according to plan, with expected progress and no significant obstacles. |
Creating Metric Hierarchies
Persistent measurements can have hierarchical structure, which shows how one metric is influenced by others. This helps create a shared understanding of the various levers a team can pull to create change in an organization.
For example, a top-level “Revenue Growth” KPI might be broken down into:
- Customer Acquisition Rate
- Average Order Value
- Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
Each of these “second-tier” metrics can then be further broken down to provide even more granular insight into what drives performance.
Pro Tip 💡: When building metric hierarchies, focus on adding only the metrics that help make strategic decisions. Too many connections can create confusion rather than clarity.
Note 🗒️: “KPI Trees” go by several names: Driver Tree, Impact Tree, Value Driver Tree, North Star Metrics (NSM) and more.
Example PLG SaaS Company Tree: View tree
Pairing Persistent & Time-bound
Using both Measurement Card types together can create a powerful strategic foundation that balances long-term business health with focused short-term improvements.
When adding persistent metrics (KPIs) to the top of your workspace, you create a stable view of how the business is performing. This view is great for identifying gaps and keeping tabs on overall performance. It’s also a powerful tool to reference when determining where to focus efforts for when working on quarterly or bi-annual planning (saving significant time by preventing “starting from scratch” each time).
Benefits of this pairing approach:
- Contextual Goal Setting - Time-bound metrics (Outcomes) can be created directly in response to underperforming KPIs
- Impact Validation - See how completed initiatives actually moved the needle on persistent metrics
- Trend Visibility - Understand both short-term fluctuations and long-term patterns in key metrics
- Focus Justification - Easily explain to stakeholders why certain objectives were prioritized based on KPI performance
Lagging & Leading
Both Persistent and Time-bound measurements can be lagging or leading.
| Metric Type | Type | Time to Influence | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Persistent | Business | Lagging | Trail Conversion Rate |
| Persistent | Product | Leading | Average time to complete first automation |
| Time-bound | Business | Lagging | Increase Trial Conversion Rate by 25% |
| Time-bound | Product | Leading | Decrease average time to first automation by 24 hours |
Lagging metrics contain multiple dependencies, many times, outside the influence of a single team. Pairing Persistent & Time-bound metrics within a Metric Hierarchy exposes those dependencies and coordinates efforts.