Direction Without a Fixed Roadmap
Set a distant direction, then take the next learnable step
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 94%
This model separates durable direction from a fragile route. First define an aspirational change far enough in the future to align people without pretending to predict each milestone. Compress that direction until teammates can understand and repeat it. Then identify only the first useful step and take it, treating later plans as provisional. As evidence arrives, revise or discard intermediate documents whose assumptions no longer hold while keeping effort pointed toward the same destination. The mechanism is alignment plus short feedback cycles: a clear destination limits aimless experimentation, while freedom from a fixed roadmap lets the team respond to new conditions. Ernsten argues that this combination is useful from an early startup through a large company because nobody can know the operating environment six months ahead with certainty.
Origin
Extracted from The Foundr Podcast
Core principles
- 01Direction matters more than a detailed long-range route
- 02The next useful step can be known even when later steps cannot
- 03Plans built on stale assumptions should not become commitments
- 04A shared vision keeps decentralized experiments aligned
How to run it
- 1
Define the distant change
Describe how the world should be different because the company exists. Use a long enough horizon that the direction is not tied to today's implementation.
Pro tip Ernsten suggests making the statement fewer than ten words, ideally fewer than five.
Watch out Do not turn the vision into a feature list.
- 2
Test shared understanding
Ask teammates to explain the direction in their own words. Resolve materially different interpretations before investing further.
Watch out Agreement on a business plan can hide disagreement about the business being built.
- 3
Choose the first step
Select the immediate action that moves toward the vision and can produce useful evidence. Avoid filling the gap with speculative milestones.
Pro tip Prefer a step that teaches you something important.
- 4
Release stale artifacts
Review plans and forecasts against current facts. Remove commitments that depend on assumptions the environment has invalidated.
Watch out Do not preserve a plan merely because the team already invested effort in it.
- 5
Realign as evidence arrives
Use new learning to pick the next step while retaining the durable direction. Keep experiments coordinated rather than letting teams wander toward separate businesses.
Watch out Autonomy without shared direction can create fiefdoms and friction.
In the wild
Strata expected live events to support its go-to-market approach, but launched as the pandemic halted those events. The team retained the underlying aim of helping people sustain meaningful professional relationships, tested tools for virtual events, and then moved toward an individual communication product when event-led acquisition did not meet its goal.
→ The team learned from the virtual-event product without treating its original route as permanent.
Common mistakes
Treating forecasts as facts
Detailed plans often embed assumptions that changing conditions invalidate. Continuing to execute them can create precision without relevance.
Aligning on documents, not direction
Co-founders can share a business plan yet hold incompatible ideas of the business. Test whether they describe the same intended change.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and leadership teams operating where conditions and assumptions change quickly.
Not ideal for
Work governed by a stable, mandatory sequence with little room for experimentation.
From the transcript
“all you can really know is where you're trying to go and hopefully your first step in that direction”
“you have an aspirational vision”
“put a stake in the ground and make it big”
From the episode
336: Starting a Business During a Crisis with the founder of Alpha and Strata, Thor Ernstsson