The Tactic Star
Summary
A Commons Library planning tool — a five-pointed star (goals, resources, audience, timing, risk) for choosing and assessing tactics.
Body
A Commons Library planning tool — a star-shaped framework for evaluating a tactic on five points: goals, resources, audience, timing, and risk.
The Tactic Star asks a team to score a proposed tactic on five points: how well it serves the goal, the resources it consumes, its fit with the audience, the timing, and the risk. The Commons Library publishes the framework under a CC license so it can be quoted and adapted [source: the-tactic-star-tool]. The Tactics Toolkit on the same Commons Library site provides the menu of named tactics that the star is applied to [source: commons-tactics-toolkit]. The star is most useful when used before an action to surface trade-offs that one-off brainstorming hides, and after an action to document what worked and why. The tactic star is the tactical counterpart to the theory of change: one decides what to do at the strategic level, the other how to evaluate any specific move.
The Tactic Star is hosted on the Commons Library site alongside the broader toolkit collection [source: commons-library].
Use it for
Choosing between two candidate tactics; debriefing an action with a structured visual; training new strategists.
Related
- methods-of-nonviolent-action
- the-campaign-cycle
- dilemma-actions
- commons-library
- the-tactic-star-tool
Learn more
- On Wikipedia: Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones — CC BY-SA 4.0
FAQ
What is the Tactic Star?
The Tactic Star is a Commons Library planning tool — a five-pointed star (goals, resources, audience, timing, risk) for choosing and assessing tactics. It asks a team to score a proposed tactic on five points: how well it serves the goal, the resources it consumes, its fit with the audience, the timing, and the risk [source: the-tactic-star-tool]. The Commons Library publishes the framework under a CC license so it can be quoted and adapted.
What is each point of the star?
The five points are: goals — how well does the tactic advance the campaign’s goal; resources — what does the tactic consume; audience — who is the tactic aimed at; timing — when does the tactic run; risk — what risk does the tactic impose on participants. The team scores each point and the post-scoring conversation decides whether the tactic is rejected, committed to, or modified.
What is the Tactic Star’s relationship to the Tactics Toolkit?
The Tactic Star is hosted on the Commons Library site alongside the broader toolkit collection [source: commons-library]. The Tactics Toolkit on the same Commons Library site provides the menu of named tactics that the star is applied to [source: commons-tactics-toolkit]. The star is the scoring framework; the toolkit is the menu.
When is the Tactic Star useful?
The star is most useful when used before an action to surface trade-offs that one-off brainstorming hides, and after an action to document what worked and why. The Tactic Star is the tactical counterpart to the theory of change: one decides what to do at the strategic level, the other how to evaluate any specific move. Use it for choosing between two candidate tactics, debriefing an action with a structured visual, or training new strategists.
Sources & verification
- sources/the-tactic-star-tool — grounding: secondary — RAW (4204 chars)
- sources/commons-tactics-toolkit — grounding: secondary — RAW (4531 chars)
- sources/commons-library — grounding: secondary — RAW (5257 chars)