Definition
The Strategy Cycle is Wardley's meta-framework for strategic thinking, structured as a continuous loop of five elements: Purpose, Landscape, Climate, Doctrine, and Leadership. It integrates Sun Tzu's five factors with Boyd's OODA loop to create a comprehensive model for strategic decision-making.
The Five Elements
Purpose: Why the organization exists. What user needs it serves. This grounds strategy in external value rather than internal ambition. Corresponds to the-art-of-war-sun-tzu's "moral law" — the alignment between an organization and those it serves.
Landscape: The map of the competitive environment — value chains, component evolution, dependencies, and positions. This is where Wardley Maps operate. Corresponds to the-art-of-war-sun-tzu's "earth" — the terrain on which strategy plays out.
Climate: The forces acting on the landscape — patterns of change that affect all players regardless of their choices. These are external pressures like "everything evolves through supply and demand competition" and "past success breeds inertia." Corresponds to the-art-of-war-sun-tzu's "heaven" — conditions you cannot control but must understand.
Doctrine: Universal principles of good organizational practice that apply regardless of context. These are not strategic choices but foundational competencies — "focus on user needs," "use appropriate methods," "be transparent," "manage inertia." Corresponds to the-art-of-war-sun-tzu's "discipline" — the internal organization of forces.
Leadership: Context-specific strategic decisions — gameplay. These are choices that depend on understanding the specific landscape and climate. Leadership decisions include where to invest, what to build vs. buy, when to open-source, how to exploit inertia in competitors. Corresponds to the-art-of-war-sun-tzu's "commander" — the exercise of strategic judgment.
The OODA Connection
The Strategy Cycle operates as a continuous loop, explicitly modeled on Boyd's OODA loop. Wardley describes it as:
The key insight Wardley takes from Boyd is that this is not a one-time planning exercise but a continuous cycle of observation, orientation, decision, and action. Strategy is not a plan — it is a process of continuous adaptation.
Significance
The Strategy Cycle provides the organizing structure for Wardley's entire framework. Each element has its own body of knowledge: maps for landscape, climate patterns for climate, doctrine principles for doctrine, and gameplay options for leadership. The cycle's value lies in making explicit what most strategic frameworks leave implicit: that strategy requires understanding purpose, position, forces, principles, AND context-specific judgment — in that order.