viii P r e fa C e trategy. It's a great word, isn't it? Just put the word `strategic' in front of a project and it shines a little brighter than all others. Look at the fund- ing for activities ­ those that are labelled `strategic' get the largest slice. The CEO's projects are almost always `strategic projects', and these ­ and all the others that go by the same name ­ get first priority. But what is a strategic project? Indeed, what is strategy? This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer, because `strategy' is a term that means different things to different people, and too often it becomes a business process that hinders rather than helps organizations to take control of their future. It is difficult to get a good definition of strategy because: S Too many strategists focus on the grandest strategic dilemmas. They write about how to shape a new business to take advantage