Four Criteria for Strategic Pillars

"The key is you're doing it together as a strategy working group, and you're debating the scores and you're reasoning why it should be higher versus lower. There's a ton of alignment and collision that's happening when you're doing that, which is very healthy for the eventual outcome." - Chandra Janakiraman

What It Is

This is a prioritization framework for selecting which opportunity areas become your strategic pillars. After clustering problems into 10-15 opportunity areas during strategy formulation, you need to select just 3 (ideally) to focus on. These four criteria provide a defensible, collaborative way to make that selection.

The framework works because it creates clear criteria before scoring, enables debate around specific dimensions rather than vague preferences, and produces documentation that defends your choices when questioned later.

How It Works

Score each opportunity area on these four criteria:

1. Expected Impact

If you tackle this area, what is the expected impact on what matters to your company, business, or product?

• How much could the needle move?
• What's the upside potential?
• Does this address a significant problem or opportunity?

2. Certainty of Impact

How confident are you that this is actually a real problem worth solving?

• Is the evidence concrete data or anecdotal?
• How well-sized is the problem?
• How frequently does the problem occur?
• What's the quality of your user research on this area?

3. Clarity of Levers

Do you actually have ideas for how you would solve this?

• Can you imagine specific solutions that would move the needle?
• Are the solutions technically feasible?
• Do you have examples of how others have solved similar problems?
• Would your team know where to start?

4. Differentiation (Unique Capabilities)

Are you the team or company uniquely positioned to build this?

• Could another team or competitor build this better than you?
• Do you have unique capabilities, data, or assets for this area?
• Would this solution be generic or distinctively yours?
• Does this leverage your competitive advantages?

How to Apply It

1. List all opportunity areas: After clustering problems, you should have 10-15 opportunity areas framed positively (e.g., "Discovery" instead of "Users can't find things")

2. Create a simple scoring system: High/Medium/Low or T-shirt sizes (S/M/L/XL) work fine—you don't need precision

3. Score collaboratively: The strategy working group debates each score together. This debate is where alignment happens

4. Document the reasoning: For each score, capture why—this becomes your defense when stakeholders question choices

5. Sum and sort: Simple addition of scores gives you a rough ranking

6. Select top 3: Your strategic pillars are the top-ranked opportunity areas

7. Name what's NOT the focus: The remaining 7-12 areas explicitly become "not focus areas" with documented reasoning

8. Include the full table in your appendix: This is your defensibility when challenged

Scoring Tips:

• If you don't have data, qualitative scores are fine—the key is the debate, not precision
• Differentiation is often overlooked but critical—generic solutions won't create strategic advantage
• Clarity of levers prevents you from picking areas where you'd be stuck after committing

When to Use It

• During the strategy sprint when selecting strategic pillars
• When prioritizing among many competing opportunities
• When you need to defend prioritization decisions to stakeholders
• When your team has too many "good ideas" and needs to focus
• Any time you're selecting the vital few from the trivial many

Source

• Guest: Chandra Janakiraman
• Episode: "An operator's guide to product strategy"
• Key Discussion: (00:35:56) - The four criteria for ranking opportunity areas
• YouTube: Watch on YouTube

Related Frameworks

• Five-Stage Strategy Process - The full process where these criteria are used
• Decision Importance Triage - Allocating effort based on decision importance
• Focus Wisely - Narrow your target ruthlessly