A strategy is a course of action followed by an organization to realize its purpose. In contrast to common use, strategy is not what an organization intends to do (its plan of action), but what it actually does (its pattern of action). Strategy is not a set of documents, but a set of deeds.
Strategy development is the process of adapting an organization’s course of action, to best fit with the environment in which it operates. In practice, this means that strategy development is about calling the current actions into question, determining a more appropriate set of actions and getting people in the organization to carry out these actions.
The Strategy Development Cycle describes how people in an organization need to go through four steps to adjust their actions. The model doesn’t detail the typical analytical steps required to draw up a strategic plan, but rather the behavioral steps needed to provoke a change in people’s pattern of action. As such, the Strategy Development Cycle explains the journey that people in an organization jointly undertake to actually adapt what they do.
Typically, not all strategic issues will go through the cycle at the same time and speed. At any moment, there will be various topics in play in each of the four quadrants of the cycle.
The four steps of the strategy development cycle are the following: