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> **Step 1 — Define a strategic Narrative**
> [](https://substack.com/redirect/482e2367-1599-453c-9f19-143bd9300664?j=eyJ1IjoiMm5udmwzIn0.437zjHHVMdVbzo_zKQIPOUwdpykWlG5CluMeGyzO674)
> The biggest benefit of NCTs is that they provide more connective tissue between your strategy and the goals necessary to achieve that strategy.
> Defining the Narrative is often the hardest part — because it forces teams to justify their work. But, this step is also the most important part. If it’s not clear what your strategy is, it doesn’t matter what your goals are.
> If it’s not clear what your strategy is, it doesn’t matter what your goals are.
> The Narrative is a 1-3 sentence qualitative description of what the team wants to achieve and why it matters to the business. The Narrative’s purpose is to tie the team’s immediate work to the company’s long-term strategy. A well-structured narrative will provide the strategic context and guardrails that allow individuals to make better decisions. You can do this by including the following:
> • Detail on why the initiative is a priority
> • Recent learnings relevant to the initiative
> • Past efforts or problems with similar initiatives
> • How the initiative fits into the broader product vision
How to Set and Achieve Ambitious Goals
Ravi Mehta
The leads of the product teams came together to organize the wish list of initiatives. They grouped the initiatives in terms of which themes each project supported and then stack-ranked them in terms of the contribution they believed each initiative would have—that is, they associated each initiative with the outcome they thought the work would create and showed how those outcomes would support the strategic goals expressed by leadership. They estimated head count for each initiative and sent the results to the finance experts, who correlated these plans with some of the major financial metrics they tracked and considered how the proposed work might impact results. When this was done, the plan was sent back up to the executives for review.
Sense and Respond
Jeff Gothelf, Josh Seiden
And the most visible and profound change is typically the move from funding, building and shipping features and projects on specific dates, to funding, building and shipping products to achieve the necessary outcomes.
Today, this is commonly referred to as moving from output to outcomes. I also like to explain this as moving from time-to-market to time-to-money.
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