Make strategy like you make software?

Allan Kelly draws some interesting conclusions about Agile software development methods as related to forming business strategy. The impetus for his post was a piece in the MIT Sloan Review entitled “Should you build strategy like you build software?.”

From Allan’s “Make strategy like you make software?”:

...for companies which use a lot of technology software and strategy are increasingly converging. Ultimately your software is your strategy – so much so that I sometimes imagine software code as liquid strategy.

...many of the practices and techniques used in Agile software development can be applied to strategy formation and execution. McFarland focus on techniques such as small iterations, collective ownership, overlapping phases, direction changes (i.e. refactoring), organising around people not tools and abolishing big up front design.

It is not only software development where managers and companies have suffered from the Illusion of Control it occurs in strategy formation and planning. Strategy formation is an emergent process, in the same way that software design is emergent.