# Blog 4: Taking Strategy from Development to Implementation

In Bringing Science to the Art of Strategy, the authors break down the process of strategy making
into digestible steps that makes it possible for everyone in the comprehend the rationale behind a
strategy. By framing the potential strategic directions as possibilities and breaking it down to a list of
“What needs to hold true” for this strategy to succeed, the members involved in strategic planning can
focus on understanding specific and targeted assumptions. Doing so takes away the need to make
arguments in the abstract. I strongly believe that this framework when adapted effectively will allow
a company to test out a strategy and validate the hypothesis before having to commit at an organizational
level. In the book “The Lean Startup”, Eric Ries, emphasizes the importance of scientific experimentation
while making business decisions. Combining his methods of building/doing business to learn with breaking
a strategy into smaller hypotheses/assumptions, strategy planning can be made more empirical. 

One common theme between the four articles has been to test the strategy
(10 questions, test assumptions in a possibility, understand and test for the balance between four tensions)
before implementing it. I believe that for a large organization to do so, strategy planning cannot be a yearly
ritual, it should rather be a continuous process. There are two stages involved in strategic planning before
a strategy can be implemented. The former being the process of coming with strategic
directions/possibilities as a company and the later is to understand the possibilities at a more granular level
and test the most significant pieces of it scientifically. To test assumptions in the real world
(or to actually understand and answer the ten questions in the article by McKinsey) will be a time
and effort consuming process that will require dedicated planning and human resources of its own.
I believe that the process involved in the plan-test-implement approach will help develop the tactical
plan needed to implement the strategy in parallel to the strategic plan. 

For a company to develop a winning strategy and take it to implementation, the process of strategy
development needs to be embedded into the organization's structure and day-to-day actions.
E.g) In the McKinsey article, two important questions to test strategy are “Does your strategy rest
on privileged insights?” and “Is your strategy granular about where to compete?”.
Answering both these questions requires a process of data collection and analysis
(quantitative and descriptive) that happens year-round. Collecting data will require the product teams
to be data-driven in culture, understand questions that need to be answered at a product and a
company level and spending resources (instrumenting apps/websites, qualitative user research etc)
on collecting data. Often times, product managers will be able to answer this question at the individual
product level. Thus to include such knowledge in the overall strategy of the company, it should
be ensured that the Organizational structure allows for all stakeholders (such as product managers)
are informed about high-level questions the company wants to answer and are involved actively in
strategic planning.