In a nutshell, one that results from hard thinking and hard choosing. "Strategy involves focus and, therefore, choice," wrote UCLA Anderson School of Management professor and business consultant Richard P. Rumelt in Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters (2011), which focuses mainly on business and military strategy. Unfortunately, bad strategy is the norm. "Bad strategy tends to skip over pesky details such as problems. It ignores the power of choice and focus, trying instead to accommodate a multitude of conflicting demands and interests."
Based on Rumelt's work, a good economic development strategy should look like a kernel containing a diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent actions. The diagnosis defines the problem or challenge, "linking facts into patterns and suggesting more attention be paid to some issues and less to others." It represents a choice between competing theories and allows one to determine how the parts of the strategy align.
The guiding policy lays out the approach or method chosen to "cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis." It "channels action in certain directions without defining exactly what shall be done."
The coherent actions are the coordinated steps chosen to implement the guiding policy. "To have punch, actions should coordinate and build upon one another, focusing organizational energy."
Making hard choices is a central theme running through Rumelt's work. Choosing is hard because the resources needed to address competing needs are scarce. "To have a strategy, rather than vague aspirations, is to choose one path and eschew others. There is difficult psychological, political, and organizational work in saying 'no' to the whole worlds of hopes, dreams, and aspirations."
Here's a brief video of Rumelt explaining the essence of strategy.
