When a project is born, the battle for power and control begins. Power and control, by themselves, are poor strategy. Control is linear thinking laid over the big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey interconnections in reality where the best laid plans often go awry.

Strategy is real power -- the power to chose, limit, and prioritize while allowing for collaborative creativity and shared vision. Yes, strategy defines what needs planning. But the goal of the work is to shine a light down the path through complexity while honoring, even savoring, the complexity itself.

Strategy is hard to do well. The rules are easy. When applied to software development, strategy is an engineering process sometimes called solution architecture. We'll explore the four elements of good strategy.