Chapter 2 — The 2Y3X Process
Two tools, one process
The 2Y3X process uses two physical artefacts:
- The Strategy Map — a radial diagram covering the three-year unifying goal and the supporting goals in five segments (People, Customers, Sales & Marketing, Process, Financials). One sheet.
- The 2Y3X Roadmap — the single-sheet tactical plan, divided into the four quarters of Year 1, with up to five tasks per quarter and a single accountable owner per task. One sheet.
The Strategy Map answers what we are trying to do and by when. The Roadmap answers who is doing what, in what order, this year.
How tasks move from Map to Roadmap
Each Year-1 item in a Strategy Map segment becomes a candidate task on the Roadmap. The Growth Lab Team (GLT) prioritises and orders them, noting interdependencies and any priorities imposed by the company's SWOT.
Then the GLT allocates each Q1 task to a single named owner — "accountable" in RACI terms. Felix is explicit that owning the task does not mean doing all the work alone: the owner is responsible for making sure the task is delivered, and is the person the GLT will look to at the next progress review.
Research → Prototype → Implement
Every task on the 2Y3X Roadmap moves through three phases:
- Research — find out what already exists, talk to others who have done it, learn what good looks like.
- Prototype — build a small version, test it inside the company, iterate.
- Implement — roll out the working version into the business as a permanent process.
A task may take a single quarter, or it may stretch across two or more. Process tasks in particular tend to need a careful Research phase, because once a process is in place it is rarely re-designed.
Why a single sheet
A single sheet of paper for the whole year, with up to twenty tasks, forces three discipline behaviours:
- It forces the team to prioritise. There are not enough boxes to hold every good idea, so the best ideas have to win.
- It makes the whole plan visible at a glance, which is essential at GLT check-ins.
- It makes ownership unambiguous.
What the Roadmap is not
It is not a list of operational duties. Day-to-day work continues under existing departmental heads. The Roadmap is the change programme — the scaffolding for future growth being built in parallel.
Adjacent ideas in the chapter
- The Growth Lab Team (GLT) — the cross-functional team that owns the Roadmap. See The Growth Lab Team.
- Interdependencies between segments — many People tasks unlock Sales & Marketing tasks; many Process tasks unlock Customers tasks. The team should plan with the dependency graph in mind.
- The Roadmap as scaffolding — once a task is implemented, the resulting process is handed off to the relevant departmental owner.