One of the most important aspects of any strategic plan is understanding how it will impact actual day-to-day operations. If a strategy cannot be reflected through the daily work that happens, nothing will actually change. The thing about operations is that while many think they understand it, no one person can actually know everything that is happening.
When we think about edge cases in operations, it is easy to think of a bell curve. We can look and see how many edge case exceptions need to be accounted for. It is always good to see how things play out on the margins but the reality is that margins are not two-sided. Operations are a bell in 3 dimensions. The edge cases exist in lots of weird and unexpected ways in all directions.
Life is always messier than it looks on a PowerPoint slide. Operations are always a limiting factor in high-level strategy. Limitations should not necessarily be viewed as negative because they can often provide guardrails for how to make the strategy come to life. While it is fun to think about a “magic wand” strategy where anything is possible, life tends to be much stickier.
While it may not be possible to understand the complete operations that take place, it is possible to at least understand the range of things that take place so that you can know when to stop and ask questions. So much of success comes from taking the time to ask the right question at the right time. Getting stuck thinking strategy-first all the time is a fast way to have a strategy that fails.