Focus System

The Focus System is a hierarchy of four levels that records why work matters. It is kept in the task management surface of each topic. This page explains each level, how the levels link, which statuses they use, and how to write and use a strategy.

The examples on this page use an invented venture called Example Co. Its names, codes, and goals are illustrations only.

The four levels

The top three levels are focus items. They describe a direction and an approach, and they stay open while the direction is pursued. Actions are the work itself. Most actions are closed when they are done. A role is the exception: it lasts as long as the responsibility exists.

How the levels link

Each lower level links to the level above it:

• An action contributes to one or more strategies.
• A strategy contributes to at least one intention, and often to several.
• An intention contributes to an objective.

Read upward, the link is contributes to. Read downward, the same link is “fulfilled by”: an objective is fulfilled by its intentions, an intention by its strategies, and a strategy by its actions. Use only these two phrases for Focus System links, so that people and AI agents read every link the same way.

The links give every action at least one path through a strategy and an intention to an objective. When someone asks why an action exists, you can follow the path upward and read the answer.

Rules for links:

• Every objective has at least one intention.
• Every intention links to an objective and has at least one strategy.
• Every strategy links to at least one intention, often several, and has one owner. A review date is optional.
• Every action links to at least one strategy. An action commonly contributes to several strategies, and they can be in different topics. The action still has one home topic.
• Links can cross topics when that is deliberate. An action in one topic can contribute to a strategy in another topic.
• Until a topic has more specific focus items, new strategies, and actions that do not yet fit a strategy, link to the topic’s default focus items.

Objectives

An objective is the top level. It states a target state or outcome that stays relevant for a long time, usually a year or more. An objective does not say how the outcome will be reached. That is the work of the levels below it.

An objective has an owner and a review slot. It is reviewed in the objective review, together with everything under it (see reviews).

Intentions

An intention is a desired direction toward an objective. It is narrower than the objective and states what should change, but not the method. An objective usually has a small number of intentions.

An intention has an owner and a review slot, and links to one objective. It is fulfilled by one or more strategies. An intention without a strategy has no plan: nobody has stated how the direction will be pursued, so no action can be linked to it.

Strategies

Why the strategy level exists

An intention states a direction. An action is one piece of work. Between them there is a choice: which approach will the work take? The same intention can be pursued in several ways, and each way leads to different actions. The strategy level records that choice.

Without a stated approach, two problems appear:

• Actions without a strategy. Actions are created one by one, with no shared approach. Two people start similar work in different ways. Work is duplicated or becomes inconsistent. Nobody can judge whether an action is useful, because there is no stated approach to compare it with.
• Intentions without a strategy. The direction is written down, but there is no plan. Nobody can say which work will move toward it.

What a strategy is

A strategy is the way in which work goes about fulfilling one or more intentions, and through them, one or more objectives. One approach often serves several intentions. It states the approach, the scope of the approach, and how to tell whether the approach works. A strategy is not a single piece of work and it is not a goal. It is between the goals (the intentions) and the work (the actions). For example, the EXOP strategy “Hold stock of the most-ordered products for same-day shipping” contributes to the intention “Reduce the time from order to delivery” and to the intention “Lose fewer sales to stock shortages”.

How a strategy is used

• It groups actions. Each action that carries out the approach links to the strategy. The strategy shows all the work that follows the approach in one place.
• It states the approach and its scope. The strategy says what the work will do and what it will not do. An action that does not fit the approach or the scope does not belong to the strategy.
• It has an owner. One person is accountable for the strategy: for its approach, its actions, and its review.
• It is reviewed. The owner checks whether the approach is working, whether each action still contributes, and whether the strategy is still needed. A strategy is reviewed with its objective in the objective review. A strategy that needs its own review at another time has a review date; the review date field is optional.
• It can be replaced while the intentions stay. If the review shows that the approach does not work, you make the strategy Inactive and create a new strategy with a different approach that contributes to the same intentions. The intentions do not change, because the directions are still wanted. Open actions are moved to the new strategy or closed with a recorded reason.
• It can draw actions from several topics. One strategy can be fulfilled by actions in more than one topic. Each action still has one home topic.
• It is not closed like an action. A strategy stays Active while the approach is pursued, even when one set of actions is done. It ends only when it is made Inactive, or it is moved to Downstream when the approach is accepted for later.

How to write a strategy

A strategy record contains:

• A short name that states the approach. For example, “Hold stock of the most-ordered products for same-day shipping”. A reader can tell from the name what the work will do.
• The intentions it serves. At least one contributes to link to an intention, usually one for each intention that the approach serves.
• An owner. One accountable person. A strategy has one owner even when it contributes to several intentions.
• A review date (optional). The date of the next strategy review, when the strategy needs a review outside the objective review.
• What success looks like. A condition or a measure that the review can check, for example “90% of orders for these products ship on the day they are ordered”.
• What is out of scope. The related work that this strategy does not cover, so that actions outside the approach are not added to it.

Common mistakes with strategies

• A strategy that is really an action. “Install new shelving” is one piece of work with a completion condition. Record it as a task under a strategy. A strategy states an approach that several actions carry out.
• A strategy that is really a goal. “Faster delivery” states a desired result, not an approach. It is an intention, or the success condition of a strategy. A strategy name says how the result will be reached.
• Too many active strategies. Each Active strategy needs an owner, actions, and reviews. When there are more Active strategies than the owners can review, reviews are missed and actions are not linked. Keep a small number Active and move the rest to Downstream.
• A strategy that no review covers. A strategy that is not under an objective with a review slot, and has no review date, is never checked. Link it to at least one intention, or give it a review date.
• Closing a strategy when its first actions are done. The approach usually needs more work later. Keep the strategy Active, or change its lifecycle status on purpose.

Sub-strategies

A strategy can contain sub-strategies when it needs to be divided, for example when two parts of the approach have different owners or need different reviews. A sub-strategy links to the strategy above it with a contributes to link, and it follows the same rules as a strategy: it has an owner, it can have a review date, and it groups actions.

Add a sub-strategy only when it helps planning or review. If a strategy has only a few actions, it does not need sub-strategies.

Actions

An action is one piece of work that contributes to one or more strategies. Each action is kept as an action record in the task management surface of its home topic.

A task is the general type of action. The other types are more specific types of action:

Every action belongs to one topic, its home topic, and links to at least one strategy. It commonly contributes to several strategies, which can be in different topics.

A role describes an ongoing responsibility. It is not closed when one activity ends, so it does not use the action workflow. A role uses the four lifecycle statuses Identified, Active, Downstream, and Inactive: it is Active while the responsibility exists, and it is made Inactive when the responsibility ends. A role is never Blocked or Closed.

An asset also does not use the action workflow. It uses its own statuses: Identified, Work Needed, Active, and Inactive. A decision uses a subset of the action workflow, without Accepted, Work Started, or Blocked; what blocks a decision is recorded as a blocker linked to it.

A unit can add its own action types, for example a bug in an engineering topic. Each added type is an action: it maps to the action level, links to at least one strategy, and uses the action workflow unless it describes an ongoing responsibility like a role. Record each added type and its mapping where the task management tool is configured.

Default focus items

When a topic is created, create one default objective and one default intention in its project:

• The default objective, named with the venture, the unit, and the word Objective: Example Co Operations Objective.
• The default intention, named in the same way, with the word Intention: Example Co Operations Intention. It contributes to the default objective.

New strategies then always have at least one intention to link to, and actions that do not yet fit a strategy have a place in the Focus System. When more specific objectives and intentions exist, link new work to them, and move existing links when the review shows a better fit. The default focus items stay Active while the topic is Active.

Statuses

Focus items and actions use two different sets of statuses.

Objectives, intentions, and strategies use the four lifecycle statuses. Topics use the same four statuses.

Tasks, blockers, and ideas use the action workflow statuses: Identified, Accepted, Work Started, Blocked, Clarification Needed, Clarification Provided, Resolution Proposed, Closed, and Resolution Rejected. Decisions use a subset: Identified, Clarification Needed, Clarification Provided, Resolution Proposed, Closed, and Resolution Rejected. Roles use the lifecycle statuses. Assets use Identified, Work Needed, Active, and Inactive. The model page defines each one.

How the Focus System relates to TFW

TFW and the Focus System answer two different questions about the same work:

• TFW answers where the work belongs and with whom: which topic, which surfaces, and which people.
• The Focus System answers why the work matters: which strategies, intentions, and objectives it contributes to.

Every action belongs to one topic and contributes to at least one strategy. The topic decides where the record is kept and who can see it. The strategies explain why the record exists. Resolve the topic first, then link the record into the Focus System.

Example: Example Co

This example follows one path from an objective to its actions. All names and numbers are invented.

• Objective: Customers of Example Co receive what they order when they expect it. Status: Active. Review slot labels: focus-review-week-2 and focus-review-day-tuesday.
  • Intention: Reduce the time from order to delivery. Contributes to the objective. Status: Active.
    • Strategy: Hold stock of the most-ordered products for same-day shipping. Contributes to this intention and to a second intention, “Lose fewer sales to stock shortages”, which is also under the objective. Status: Active.
      • Owner: the operations lead.
      • Review date (optional, set because the approach is new): the first working day of next quarter.
      • Success: 90% of orders for the selected products ship on the day they are ordered.
      • Out of scope: changing carriers, and products made to order.
      • Actions that contribute to the strategy:
        • Task EXOP-12: Choose the 50 most-ordered products from last year’s orders.
        • Decision EXOP-15: Approve the budget for the extra stock.
        • Blocker EXOP-18: The shelving for the extra stock is not installed.
        • Idea EXOP-20: Offer a pickup option for local customers.
        • Asset EXOP-22: The extra shelving in the warehouse, once it is installed.
        • Role EXOP-9: Stock planner, who reorders the selected products each week. Status: Active.
        • Task EXMC-31: Show “ships today” on the product pages of the selected products.

The actions with the EXOP code have their home topic in Example Co Operations. Task EXMC-31 has its home topic in Example Co MarCom, because the product pages are MarCom work. It contributes to the same strategy through a deliberate cross-topic link. It also contributes to a strategy in Example Co MarCom about product page content, so it has two contributes to links and one home topic.

On the review date, the owner finds that only 60% of orders for the selected products ship the same day, because the warehouse is too far from most customers. Both intentions are still wanted, so they stay Active. The owner makes the strategy Inactive and creates a new strategy that contributes to the same two intentions: “Ship the most-ordered products from a fulfillment partner near the largest customer region”. The open actions that still fit are linked to the new strategy. The others are closed with a recorded reason.

Reviews

The review method depends on the type of focus item.

• Objectives and intentions have a fixed review slot: a week of the month and a day of the week. The slot is recorded in two labels on the record, focus-review-week-<1-4> and focus-review-day-<weekday>, for example focus-review-week-2 and focus-review-day-tuesday. An intention usually has the same slot as its objective.
• The objective review happens in the objective’s slot, at the objective level, in a hierarchy view of the task management tool. The view shows the objective with its intentions, strategies, and actions, and they are reviewed with it. In Jira, a hierarchy view app for Jira provides this view.
• Strategies are reviewed with their objective. A strategy can also have a review date, an optional field, when it needs its own review at another time.

A saved filter on the review slot labels lists the objectives due in a given week and on a given day. The near-term action review and the topic audit check actions and topics. See reviews by scope for the tempo, scope, and question of each review.