Why you need it
Strategies fill up with initiatives: each has a champion, none gets shut down. The result is a diluted portfolio. The kill matrix forces you to classify, not just to rank: one decision for every idea.
The four quadrants
- Scale — consistent and proven: it works and confirms the strategy. Invest more.
- Strengthen — consistent but unproven: it’s right, but it hasn’t shown signals yet. Invest in execution and measurement before deciding.
- Challenge — proven but off-strategy: it works, but it leads you off course. Either the market is telling you something and the strategy needs revisiting, or it has to be stopped before it changes the brand.
- Kill — neither consistent nor proven. Stop it, and move the resources elsewhere.
How to use it
1. List the bets
Alternative positionings, content pillars, channels, campaign ideas, segments: everything you’re investing in or thinking of investing in. Each item with a clear name.
2. Assess fit with the strategy
Against written choices — positioning, the choice cascade — not against the preferences of the moment. For each assessment, one line of rationale.
3. Assess the evidence
Data, results, signals from the market. Internal enthusiasm isn’t evidence.
4. Decide one move for each bet
Not “to be evaluated”: a concrete move with a timeframe. For ideas to kill, the move is to stop, not to wait.
5. Read the portfolio as a whole
Everything in “scale” usually means the assessment was too lenient. Lots of ideas in “challenge” tell you the market is pulling in a different direction from the written strategy.
The most common mistakes
- Lenient assessments. If no idea gets killed, the matrix didn’t do its job.
- Confusing “strengthen” with “kill.” A right idea without evidence deserves a test, not a shutdown.
- Ignoring the uncomfortable quadrant. Ideas that work off-strategy are the riskiest, and the most instructive.
- No reference strategy. Without written choices, consistency becomes a matter of opinion.
