As the pace of change accelerates, and the nature of strategy planning work shifts from emphasising analysis and forecasting to being more concerned with communication, co-ordination and control, strategy and organisation have to be approached as interlinked, practical activities.

The ‘craft skills’ of mastering tools and procedures matter increasingly as traditional ‘static’ strategic analysis yields designs that prove to be of only transitory value. The authors analyse the use in action of three such tools – strategy workshops, strategy projects and strategy artefacts – identifying a common theme of the importance of hands-on, practical skills in getting strategising done.

The article argues for a greater recognition of such craft skills in strategy, alongside traditional analytical skills, and the authors call for a broadening of the skill base beyond economic analysis, both in firms and on business schools’ curricula. Formal strategy making should not be rejected, but renewed by injecting craft directly into the process.

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