List of Sun Tzu's Warrior's Playbook Articles

Article ID Public Date Description
0.0 Comparing Choices The nine keys to winning by realistically comparing alternatives.
0.1 The Power of Choice (Unfinished) ​​​​​​​The keys to making better choices over time.
1.0.0 Competitive Positioning The eight keys to understanding competitive strategy in terms of developing relatively superior positions.
1.1.0 Position Paths The six keys to understanding the continuity of strategic positions over time.
1.1.1 Position Dynamics The seven keys to understanding how all current positions are always getting better or worse.
1.1.2 Defending Positions The six keys to understanding the basic ways that we defend our current positions until new positions are established.
1.1.3 Resisting Advances The eight keys to the most effective ways for advancing competitive positions.
1.2 Subobjective Positions The eight keys to understanding the subjective and objective aspects of a position.
1.2.1 Competitive Landscapes The seven keys to understanding the arenas in which rivals jockey for position.
1.2.2 Exploiting Exploration The seven keys to knowing how competitive landscapes are searched and positions utilized.
1.2.3 Position Complexity The seven keys to understanding how strategic positions arise from interactions in complex environments.
1.3 Elemental Analysis The eight keys to understanding the relevant components of all competitive positions.
1.3.1 Elemental Comparison The six keys to understanding how people compare positions based on their elements
1.3.2 Element Scalability The six keys to understanding how positions are analyzed by both component positions and elements.
1.4 The External Environment The seven keys to understanding the key external conditions shaping strategic positions.
1.4.1 Climate Shift The nine key keys to understanding forces of environmental change shaping temporary conditions.
1.4.2 Ground Features The ten keys to understanding the persistent resources that we can control.
1.5 Competing Agents The seven keys to understanding characteristics of competitors.
1.5.1 Command Leadership Twelve keys to understanding individual decision-making (leaders).
1.5.2. Group Methods The ten keys to understanding systems for executing decisions (skills).
1.6 Mission Values The eight keys to the goals and values needed for motivation.
1.6.1 Shared Mission The ten keys to finding goals that others can share.
1.6.2 Types of Motivations The six keys to understanding hierarchies of motivation that define missions.
1.6.3 Shifting Priorities Sun Tzu seven keys to how missions change according to temporary conditions.
1.7 Competitive Power The ten keys to understanding the sources of superiority in challenges.
1.7.1 Team Unity The ten keys to increasing our strength by the way we join with others.
1.7.2 Goal Focus Five keys to understanding strength as arising from concentrating efforts.
1.8 Progress Cycle The ten keys to understanding the adaptive loop by which positions are advanced.
1.8.1 Creation and Destruction The five keys to the creation and destruction of competitive positions.
1.8.2 The Adaptive Loop The eight keys to the continual reiteration of position analysis.
1.8.3 Cycle Time The four keys to understanding the importance of speed in feedback and reaction.
1.8.4 A Probabilistic Process The six keys to understanding the role of chance in strategic processes and systems.
1.9 Competition and Production The seven keys to understanding the two opposing skill sets of competition and production.
1.9.1 Production Comparisons The six keys to understanding how production naturally creates competition.
1.9.2 Span of Control The eight keys to understanding the boundaries of competition and productiion.
2.0.0 Developing Perspective Sun Tzu seven keys to adding depth to competitive analysis.
2.1 Information Value The six keys to understanding knowledge and communication as the basis of strategy.
2.1.1 Information Limits The eight keys to making good decisions with limited information.
2.1.2 Leveraging Uncertainty The five keys to leveraging the elemental nature of uncertainty.
2.1.3 Strategic Deception Sun Tzu nine keys to using misinformation and disinformation in competition.
2.1.4 Surprise The five keys to the creation of surprise depends on the nature of information.
2.1.5 The Power of Truth (Unfinished) The keys to understanding the strategic value of truth telling.
2.2 Information Gathering Sun Tzu five keys to gathering competitive information.
2.2.1 Personal Relationships The five keys to seeing why information depends on personal relationships.
2.2.2 Mental Models The five keys to knowing how mental models simplify decision-making.
2.2.3 Standard Terminology Sun Tzu five keys to understanding how mental models must be shared to enable communication.
2.2.4 From Questions to Answers (Unfinished) The steps to move from analysis to action.
2.3 Personal Interactions The six keys to making progress through personal interactions.
2.3.1 Action and Reaction The eight keys to knowing how we advance based on how others reaction to our actions.
2.3.2 Reaction Unpredictability The seven keys to explaining why we can never exactly predict the reactions of others.
2.3.3 Likely Reactions Seven keys to understanding the range of potential reactions in gathering information.
2.3.4 Using Questions Sun Tzus five keys to using questions in gathering information and predicting reactions.
2.3.5 Infinite Loops Four principles predicting reactions on the basis of the "you-know-that-I-know-that-you-know" problem.
2.3.6 Promises and Threats The six keys to the use of promises and threats as strategic moves.
2.4 Contact Networks Five keys to understanding the range of contacts needed to create perspective.
2.4.1 Ground Perspective The three keys to getting information on a new competitive arena.
2.4.2 Climate Perspective The four keys to getting perspective on temporary external conditions.
2.4.3 Command Perspective The six keys to understanding developing sources for understanding decision-makers.
2.4.4 Methods Perspective The five keys to developing contacts who understand best practices.
2.4.5 Mission Perspective The seven keys to knowing how we develop and use a perspective on motivation.
2.5 The Big Picture The nine keys to building big picture strategic awareness.
2.6 Knowledge Leverage The five keys to getting competitive value out of knowledge.
2.7 Information Secrecy The nine keys to understanding the role of secrecy in relationships.
3.0.0 Identifying Opportunities The five keys to understanding the use of opportunities to advance a position.
3.1 Strategic Economics The six keys to balancing the cost and benefits of positioning.
3.1.1 Resource Limitations The six keys to understanding the inherent limitation of strategic resources.
3.1.2 Strategic Profitability The nine keys to understanding gains and losses.
3.1.3 Conflict Cost The six keys to the costly nature of resolving competitive comparisons by conflict.
3.1.4 Openings The seven keys to seeking openings avoids costly conflict.
3.1.5 Unpredictable Value Seven keys to understanding the limitations of predicting the value of positions.
3.1.6 Time Limitations Sun Tzu nine keys to understanding the time limits on opportunities.
3.2 Opportunity Creation Five keys to understanding how change creates opportunities.
3.2.1 Environmental Dominance The five keys to seeing why openings must be created by others.
3.2.2 Opportunity Invisibility Sun Tzu five keys to seeing why opportunities are always hidden.
3.2.3 Complementary Opposites Five keys to understanding the dynamics of balance from opposing forces.
3.2.4 Emptiness and Fullness The nine keys to the transformations between emptiness and fullness.
3.2.5 Dynamic Reversal The five keys to understanding how situations reverse themselves naturally.
3.2.6 Opening Matrix Tool Six keys to building a matrix to help us identify unseen openings using The five elements of positioning.
3.3 Opportunity Resources Eight keys to understanding the nature of the excess resources needed to fill openings.
3.4 Dis-Economies of Scale The six keys to seeing opportunities are created by the size of others.
3.4.1 Unity Breakdown The eight keys to understanding the opposition of size and unity.
3.4.2 Opportunity Fitness The seven keys to understanding the problems for large organization finding new opportunities that fit their size.
3.4.3 Reaction Lag Sun Tzu’s six keys to understanding why organizations react slower as they grow larger.
3.5 Strength and Weakness Six keys to seeing how opportunities are created by the strength of others.
3.6 Leveraging Subjectivity The seven keys to understanding openings between subjective and objective positions.
3.7 Redefining the Comparison Sun Tzu’s eight keys to redefining a competitive arena to create relative mismatches.
3.8 Strategic Matrix Analysis Four keys to understanding two-dimensional representations of strategic space.
4.0 Leveraging Probability The nine principles for making better decisions regarding our choice of opportunities.
4.1 Future Potential Five keys to understanding the limitations and potential of current and future positions.
4.2 Choosing Non-Action The seven keys to choosing between action and non-action.
4.3 Leveraging Form The seven keys to knowing how we can leverage the form of a territory.
4.3.1 Tilted Forms The six keys to understanding space that is dominated by uneven features.
4.3.2 Fluid Forms The six keys to selecting opportunities in fast-changing environments.
4.3.3 Soft Forms The six keys to understanding space that is dominated by non-supporting features.
4.3.4 Neutral Forms The seven keys to evaluating opportunities with no dominant ground form.
4.4 Strategic Distance The nine keys to understanding relative proximity in strategic space.
4.4.1 Physical Distance The six keys to understanding the issues of proximity in physical space.
4.4.2 Intellectual Distance The six keys to understanding the challenges of moving through intellectual space.
4.5 Opportunity Surfaces The six keys to judging potential opportunities from a distance.
4.5.1 Surface Area The seven keys to choosing opportunities on the basis of their size.
4.5.2 Surface Barriers Seven keys to understanding how to select opportunities by evaluating obstacles.
4.5.3 Surface Holding Power The seven keys to understanding sticky and slippery situations.
4.6 Six Benchmarks Five keys to understanding simplifying the comparisons of opportunities.
4.6.1 Spread-Out Conditions The five keys to recognizing opportunities that are too large.
4.6.2 Constricted Conditions The five keys to identifying and using constricted positions.
4.6.3 Barricaded Conditions The seven keys to understanding the issues related to the extremes of obstacles.
4.6.4 Wide-Open Conditions Six keys to understanding the issues related to an absence of barriers.
4.6.5 Fixed Conditions The nine keys to understanding positions with extreme holding power.
4.6.6 Sensitive Conditions Six keys to understanding the affects of positions with no holding power on pursuing opportunities.
4.7 Competitive Weakness The six keys to knowing how certain opportunities can bring out our weaknesses.
4.7.1 Command Weaknesses The ten keys to the character flaws of leaders and how to exploit them.
4.7.2 Group Weaknesses The six keys to understanding organizational weakness and where they fail.
4.8 Climate Support The eight keys to choosing new positions based on future changes.
4.9 Opportunity Mapping Five keys to understanding a two-dimensional tool for comparing opportunities probabilities.
5.0.0 Minimizing Mistakes The five general keys to minimizing mistakes in advancing a position.
5.1 Mission Priorities The five keys to aligning our actions with mission.
5.1.1 Event Pressure The eight keys to knowing how to avoid mistakes under the pressure of events.
5.1.2 Unproductive Responsibility The seven keys to knowing how our planned activities develop a life of their own.
5.2 Opportunity Exploration The seven keys to understanding a mental framework for exploring opportunities.
5.2.1 Choosing Adaptability The five keys to choosing actions that allow us a maximum of future flexibility.
5.2.2 Campaign Methods The five keys to understanding the use of campaigns and their methods.
5.2.3 Unplanned Steps The seven keys to distinguishing campaign adjustments from steps in a plan.
5.3 Reaction Time The five keys to the use of speed in choosing actions.
5.3.1 Speed and Quickness The seven keys to understanding the use of pace within a dynamic environment.
5.3.2 Opportunity Windows The five keys to the effect of speed upon opposition.
5.3.3 Information Freshness The six keys to the choosing actions based on freshness of information.
5.4 Minimizing Action The six keys to understanding minimizing waste, i.e. less is more.
5.4.1 Testing Value The five keys to choosing actions to test for value.
5.4.2 Successful Mistakes Six keys to understanding the advantages in learning from our mistakes.
5.5 Focused Power The five keys to size consideration in safe experimentation.
5.5.1 Force Size The eight keys to limiting the size of force in an advance.
5.5.2 Distance Limitations The eight keys to the use of short steps to reach distant goals.
5.5.3 Evaluation Deadlines The six keys to setting deadlines for evaluating progress.
5.6 Defensive Advances The six keys to balancing defending and advancing positions.
5.6.1 Defense Priority Seven keys to understanding why defense has first claim on our resources.
5.6.2 Acting Now The eight keys to acting on opportunities immediately.
6.0 Situation Response The eight keys to selecting the actions most appropriate to a situation.
6.1 Situation Recognition The seven keys to situation recognition in making advances.
6.1.1 Conditioned Reflexes The four keys to knowing how we develop automatic, instantaneous responses.
6.1.2 Prioritizing Conditions The six keys to parsing complex competitive conditions into simple responses.
6.2 Campaign Evaluation The five keys to knowing how we justify continued investment in an on-going campaign.
6.2.1 Campaign Flow The six keys to seeing campaigns as a series of situations that flow logically from one to another
6.2.2 Campaign Goals The five keys to assessing the value of a campaign by a larger mission.
6.3 Campaign Patterns The seven keys to knowing how knowing campaign stages gives us insight into our situation.
6.3.1 Early-Stage Situations The six keys to understanding the common situations that arise the earliest in campaigns.
6.3.2 Middle-Stage Situations The six keys to knowing how progress creates transitional situations in campaigns.
6.3.3 Late-Stage Situations The six keys to understanding the final and most dangerous stages of campaigns.
6.4 Nine Situations The ten keys to understanding the nine common competitive situations.
6.4.1 Dissipating Situations The five keys to recognizing situations where defensive unity is destroyed.
6.4.2 Easy Situations The five keys to recognizing situations of easy initial progress.
6.4.3 Contentious Situations The four keys to identifying situations that invite conflict.
6.4.4 Open Situations The five keys to recognizing situations of that are races without a course.
6.4.5 Intersecting Situations The five keys to recognizing situations that bring people together.
6.4.6 Serious Situations The six keys to identifying situations where resources can be cut off.
6.4.7 Difficult Situations The six keys to difficult situations where serious barriers must be overcome.
6.4.8 Limited Situations The six keys to identifying situations defined by a bottleneck.
6.4.9 Desperate Situations The three keys to identifying situations where destruction is possible.
6.5 Nine Responses The twelve keys to using the best responses to the nine common competitive situations.
6.5.1 Dissipating Response The five keys to responding to dissipation by the use of offense as defense.
6.5.2 Easy Response The five keys to understanding overcoming complacency.
6.5.3 Contentious Response The five keys to responding to contentious situations by knowing how to avoid conflict.
6.5.4 Open Response The five key on keeping up with the opposition.
6.5.5 Intersecting Response The five keys to the formation of situational alliances.
6.5.6 Serious Response The six keys to responding to serious situations by finding immediate income.
6.5.7 Difficult Response Five keys to understanding the role of persistence.
6.5.8 Limited Response The four keys to the need for secret speed in tight situations.
6.5.9 Desperate Response The five keys to knowing when to use all our resources.
6.6 Campaign Pause The five keys to knowing when to stop advancing a position.
6.7 Tailoring to Conditions Seven keys to understanding overcoming opposition using conditions in the environment.
6.7.1 Form Adjustments The five keys to adapting our responses based on the form of the ground.
6.7.2 Size Adjustments The seven keys to understanding adapting responses based on the relative size of opposing forces.
6.7.3 Strength Adjustments The nine keys to knowing how to adapt responses based on relative strength of opposing missions.
6.8 Competitive Psychology The nine keys to improving competitive psychology even in adversity and failure.
6.8.1 Adversity and Creativity The nine keys to how we use adversity to spark our creativity.
6.8.2 Strength in Adversity The seven keys to using adversity to increase a group's unity and focus.
6.8.3 Individual Toughness The eight keys to knowing how failure develops character.
7.0 Creating Momentum The seven keys to knowing how momentum requires creativity.
7.1 Order from Chaos The seven keys to seeing the value of chaos in creating competitive momentum.
7.1.1 Creating Surprise The five keys to creating surprise using our chaotic environment.
7.1.2 Momentum Psychology The five keys to the psychology of surprise.
7.1.3 Standards and Innovation The seven keys to the methodology of creativity.
7.1.4 Innovation and Information (Unfinished) The five keys to understanding information flow in innovation.
7.2 Standards First The seven keys to the role of standards in creating connections with others.
7.2.1 Proven Methods The eight keys to identifying and recognizing the limits of best practices.
7.2.2 Preparing Expectations The eight keys to knowing how we shape other people's expectation.
7.3 Basic Strategic Innovation The six keys to understanding a simple system for innovation.
7.3.1 Expected Elements The seven keys to dividing processes and systems into components.
7.3.2 Elemental Rearrangement The six keys to seeing invention as rearranging proven elements.
7.3.3 Creative Innovation The seven keys to the more advanced methods for innovation
7.4 Competitive Timing The six keys to the role of timing in creating momentum.
7.4.1 Timing Methods The four keys to the three simplest methods of controlling timing.
7.4.2 Momentum Timing The five keys to the relative value of momentum at various times in a campaign.
7.4.3 Interrupting Patterns Six keys to understanding how repetition creates patterns for surprise.
7.5 Momentum Limitations The six keys to the implications of momentum's temporary nature.
7.5.1 Momentum Conversion The six keys to converting momentum into positions with more value.
7.5.2 The Spread of Innovation The four keys to using the spread of innovation to advance our position.
7.6 Productive Competition The eight keys to using momentum to produce more resources.
7.6.1 Resource Discovery The six keys to using innovation to create value from seemingly worthless resources.
7.6.2 Ground Creation The six keys to understanding how we use the creation of new competitive ground to be successful.
8.0 Winning Rewards The six keys to knowing how we harvest the rewards of a new position.
8.1 Successful Positions The four keys to understanding the nature of a profitable position.
8.1.1 Transforming Resources The six keys to converting the intangible value of positions to the resources we need.
8.1.2 Reward Boundaries The six keys to understanding the limits of our control over a position and its rewards.
8.1.3 Reward Timing The six keys to identifying rewarding positions based upon timing.
8.2 Making Claims The five keys to claiming rewards after winning positions.
8.3 Securing Rewards The five keys to maximizing the rewards from a position.
8.3.1 Gauging Value The five keys to the methods for correctly measuring a position's value.
8.3.2 Distinctive Packaging The nine keys to creating the perception of value.
8.3.3 Rules of Engagement The nine keys outlining the do's and don't of making claims.
8.3.4 Position Production The seven keys to understanding the shift from profitable competition to profitable production.
8.4 Individual Support The eight keys to understanding the general techniques for winning the support of individuals.
8.5 Leveraging Emotions The eight keys to understanding how we use emotion to obtain rewards.
8.6 Winning Attention The eight keys to understanding how to win the attention of others for our claims.
8.7 Productivity Improvement The seven keys to improving internal production to support external competition.
8.7.1 Evaluating Erosion The eight keys to gauging the erosion of our current positions.
8.7.2 Abandoning Positions The six keys to understanding how we abandon a losing position safely.
9.0 Understanding Vulnerability Sun Tu's six keys to understanding the use of common environmental attacks.
9.1 Fire Storm Vulnerability The seven keys to understanding our vulnerability to environmental crises.
9.1.1 Climate Rivals The six keys to preparing against how changing conditions create opponents.
9.1.2 Threat Development The seven keys to knowing how changing conditions create environmental threats.
9.2 Points of Vulnerability The five keys to seeing our points of vulnerability during an environmental crisis.
9.2.1 Personnel Risk The five keys to the vulnerability of key individuals.
9.2.2 Immediate Resource Risk The five keys to the resources required for immediate use.
9.2.3 Logistics Risk The four keys to knowing how firestorms choke normal channels of movement and communication.
9.2.4 Asset Risk The four keys to understanding the threats to our fixed assets.
9.2.5 Organizational Risk The five keys to the targeting the roles and responsibilities within an organization.
9.3 Crisis Leadership The nine keys to maintaining the support of our supporters during attacks.
9.3.1 Mutual Danger The six keys to understanding how we use mutual danger to create mutual strength.
9.3.2 Message Control The five keys to communication methods to use during a crisis.
9.4 Crisis Defense The five keys to knowing how vulnerabilities are exploited and defended during a crisis.
9.4.1 Division Defense The five keys to preventing organizational division during a crisis.
9.4.2 Panic Defense The four keys to preventing mistakes from panic during a crisis.
9.4.3 Defending Openings The four keys to knowing how to defend openings created by a crisis.
9.4.4 Defending Alliances The five keys to dealing with guilt-by-association.
9.4.5 Defensive Balance The four keys to using short-term conditions to tip the balance in a crisis.
9.5 Crisis Exploitation The five keys to how to successfully use an opponent's crisis.
9.5.1 Adversarial Opportunities The eight keys to knowing how our opponents' crises can create opportunities.
9.5.2 Avoiding Emotion The six keys to the danger of exploiting environmental vulnerabilities for purely emotion reasons.
9.6 Constant Vigilance The five keys to understanding where to focus our attention to preserve our positions.