At this point, every new technology startup with a wiz-bang product has brought the idea of Beta products to popular consciousness. Beta is the idea of something being complete but not quite ready for official/bug-free/have at it status.
Why can’t the same concept be applied to business strategy? Let’s play out this thought experiment:
Your strategy is how you go to market. Maybe you provide services, a physical product or even a software solution. Could be any number of possibilities. But traditionally once a strategy is set it is something very hard to adjust. It is what a company does. But why can’t it be changed if it’s proven to be wrong?
It can be. But most organizations don’t have a way of testing or measuring the success of their strategy. It’s something that exists but not in a living format. And that is the fundamental flaw to most strategies – they can’t be measured or tested to see if they are working.
Software philosophy preaches constant testing and validation. You can’t build something if you don’t know the result you are trying to build towards. Business strategy doesn’t have to be different.