⌘ The Architecture Reference

Path strategy · The Architect's Path · Intermediate

Creating Strategy

The creation patterns build a strategy's substance in concentric scopes — industry frameworks (SWOT, Porter's Five Forces, Ansoff) and corporate portfolio tools (BCG Growth-Share, APM, Value Chain).

Path strategy Intermediate ⏱ 5 min read Complete

🎯 Analogy

Canon beat Xerox not by copying its big serviced machines but by reading the board: it built copiers with only eight basic parts and a disposable assembly, needing no service department, and sold them to individuals for a fraction of the price. Xerox’s market share collapsed from 95% to 14% in five years. Creation patterns are how you read that board on purpose.

The 19 creation patterns are arranged in a logical architecture of concentric scopes, narrowing from broadest to narrowest: Analysis → World → Industry → Company → Department. You use only the patterns the job needs. This page covers the industry and corporate scopes — the frameworks businesspeople already know, applied through a technology lens.

Industry context

graph TD
I["Industry analysis"]
I --> SW["SWOT<br/>internal/external × helpful/harmful"]
I --> P5["Porter's Five Forces"]
I --> AN["Ansoff Growth Matrix<br/>products × markets"]
P5 --> NE["New entrants"]
P5 --> SU["Substitution"]
P5 --> BC["Buyer power"]
P5 --> BS["Supplier power"]
P5 --> RV["Industry rivalry"]
  • SWOT — Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats on two axes: placement (internal vs. external) and potential (helpful vs. harmful). Start with internal items — “get your own house in order.”
  • Porter’s Five Forces (1980) — the pressures that determine competitive advantage: threat of new entrants (the most attractive segments have high entry barriers and low exit barriers — airlines), ease of substitution (a substitute solves the same need with different technology — cell phones replacing landlines, a threat from outside the industry), bargaining power of customers, bargaining power of suppliers (for software firms the two key suppliers are compute/storage and developers themselves), and industry rivalry. Make one slide per force, state how your technology direction supports or defends it, and tag each red/yellow/green.
  • Ansoff Growth Matrix (1957) — four growth avenues on products × markets: market penetration (existing/existing, easiest), market development (existing products, new markets — Canon selling copiers to individuals), product development (new products, existing customers — building a platform like AWS), and diversification (new/new, riskiest but spreads risk like a portfolio).

🔑 Supplier power is about people

For a software business, your “supply” is largely people. Scarce AI PhDs command high salaries and thus considerable supplier power. The talent life cycle runs from emerging tech (huge differentiation) → maturing → commodity (little differentiation, like Java today) → eventually automated away.

Corporate context: portfolio thinking

Inside your own company, the maxim is: “the way to be successful is to do something that matters to someone who matters.” The key portfolio tools:

  • Value Chain (Porter, 1985) — five primary activities (Inbound Logistics → Operations → Outbound Logistics → Marketing & Sales → Service) plus support functions. Three value types a technologist offers: Sustain the value (keep ops running), Maximize value (do the same things better), Discover value (invent new markets — like Post-it notes).
  • Growth-Share Matrix (the “BCG Box,” 1970) — portfolio analysis on market growth × market share: Cash Cows (low/high — milk for cash), Stars (high/high — invest and protect), Question Marks (high/low — focus your analysis here), and Dogs (low/low — retire).
graph TD
ST["Stars<br/>high growth, high share<br/>invest and protect"]
CC["Cash Cows<br/>low growth, high share<br/>milk for cash"]
QM["Question Marks<br/>high growth, low share<br/>focus analysis here"]
DG["Dogs<br/>low growth, low share<br/>retire"]
QM -->|"invest"| ST
QM -->|"neglect"| DG
ST -->|"growth slows"| CC
  • Application Portfolio Management (APM) — view all applications together and rationalize them. Tag each app by asset class: Strategic (competitive advantage), Informational, Transactional (the backbone), Infrastructure. Then plot business alignment × technical risk to decide Grow/Evolve/Maintain, Tolerate, Retire, or Reengineer/Modernize/Replace (the question marks — high alignment but high technical debt).

⚠️ The Law of the Product of Probabilities

When optimizing a multi-step process, the joint probability is the product, not the average. A five-step process at 80/85/90/85/90% looks like 86% averaged but is only ~47% as a product — a crucial trap when you “improve” each step in isolation.

Department context: connecting work to vision

At the narrowest scope, Principles → Practices → Tools links daily work to the vision: “the tools support the practices; the practices realize the principles.” A principle with no practice is just a platitude. Use a Process Posture Map to tag each process — Start, Continue, Invest, Assess, Revise — and a Project Heat Map to score in-flight projects by net value and quality.

💡 2×2s are guides, not deciders

Strategy consultants “adore” 2×2 overlays — BCG, Ansoff, Investment Maps, Core/Innovation Waves. Use them to think, not to decide automatically. And per the “Get Real” rule: you can’t claim cost savings you don’t actually realize — if the people stay on payroll, call it a benefit, not a saving.

See also

When to use it — and when not

✅ Reach for it when

  • When assessing competitive advantage in your industry through a technology lens.
  • When rationalizing a portfolio of products or applications and deciding what to grow, retire, or modernize.
  • When choosing a growth avenue across the product × market grid.

⛔ Think twice when

  • When you treat a 2×2 matrix as a decision-maker rather than a guide — consultants 'adore' overlays.
  • When a tiny project needs only a few patterns, not the full concentric set.
  • When you claim 'cost savings' you never actually realize (call it benefit unless people leave payroll).
path-strategyAnalyzing Strategy

The analysis metapatterns — MECE, Logic Trees, and Hypothesis — plus the world-context frameworks PESTEL, Scenario Planning, Futures Funnel, and Backcasting that ground a strategy in reality.

path-strategyWhat Is Technology Strategy?

Strategy is the art of creating power — technologists win funding by speaking the language of business, using proven patterns to analyze, create, and communicate a fundable course of action.

path-strategyCommunicating Strategy

Winning approval is its own discipline — the 30-second answer, Ars Rhetorica, dramatic structure, the meeting before the meeting, and the Ask Deck that turns analysis into funded action.

Check your understanding

Score: 0 / 4

1. What do Porter's Five Forces determine?

Porter's forces are: threat of new entrants, ease of substitution, bargaining power of customers, bargaining power of suppliers, and industry rivalry. The most attractive segments have high entry barriers and low exit barriers.

2. In the BCG Growth-Share Matrix, where should you focus your analysis?

Cash Cows are milked for cash; Stars are protected; Dogs are retired. The decision energy belongs on Question Marks, where investment decides whether they rise or fall.

3. What are the four growth avenues in the Ansoff Matrix?

Ansoff plots products × markets: penetration (existing/existing, easiest), development of markets or products, and diversification (new/new, riskiest but spreads risk like a portfolio).

4. In Application Portfolio Management, why are compute and storage 'strategic' at AWS rather than 'infrastructure'?

Asset classes (Strategic, Informational, Transactional, Infrastructure) depend on the business: what is mere infrastructure for one company is the competitive core for another.

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