The Framework

It runs on any system you want to improve, whether that is a company, a body, or a marriage, because every system that improves does so in the same order: know where you are going, choose how you will get there, do the work, see what happened, and adjust.

The Framework is the sequence, not the whole method. MEASURE × HACK™ is the method; the Framework is what sits at its center; the 5 steps below are its disciplines. See MEASURE × HACK™ for how the names fit together.

The five steps

1. Vision. Where are we going, and for whom?
2. Strategy. Where do we play, how do we win, and what are we choosing not to do?
3. Execution. What is the operating cadence that turns strategy into weekly motion?
4. Measure. What do the numbers actually say, and which numbers matter now?
5. Hack. What is the one smallest change that moves the most?

Lineage

Vision draws on EOS. Strategy draws on Playing to Win by Lafley and Martin. Execution draws on MAP. Measure and Hack are where MEASURE × HACK™ was built.

Naming the borrowed parts is deliberate. The first three steps are well covered by people who have taught them for decades, and pretending otherwise would be both dishonest and a waste of the reader's time.

Common mistake

Running steps 1 through 3 and stopping.

Most operators have a vision, a strategy, and a cadence, and still cannot tell you which number moved last month or what they would change on Monday. Steps 4 and 5 are where the compounding lives, and they are the two most often skipped, because they are the two that require admitting what is actually happening.