I've typically two types of work branded as "strategy". The first is a bit like doing a university dissertation where you go and do lots of data collection and research, analyse trends and charts, and come out within findings.The second is working with senior executives to explore different options they have, and helping them to work out the cost and other implications of various decisions. This latter is typically less grounded in research.However my experience of strategy is limited, and I want to know from more experienced people what is strategy normally like?

Both are valid approaches, and both often come up with the same or very similar answers. Even with the detailed approach, this is almost always hypothesis-driven i.e. in the first week of the project people guess what the answer will be and then set about analysis to determine whether they're right or not. To this end, both approaches are often influenced by the "gut feel" of executives and consultants, though you have more evidence through the detailed approach to support conclusions. Very often, executives can "feel" what's happening in the market, but they lack the detail of what customers, competitors, suppliers etc. are doing and so collecting evidence is valuable in updating their knowledge.Proper corporate strategy should generally only be set every 2-3, the in between years more of business planning cycles than strategy. For me, the best way is to have one detailed review followed by 1 or 2 of the gut feel reviews to tweak operational strategy. However, the strategy houses have made an art of convincing executives that everything they do must be evidence based (i.e. some spotty 20 something researches the market that the CEO has worked in for 25 years) to justify any decisions to shareholders. The fact that, as above, the detailed research will lead to exactly the same conclusion seems to be lost on many people.

As suggested, both approaches are valid and indeed necessary to develop a successful strategy.Using the science analogy, there is incremental research, exhaustively researching the properties and behaviour of different combinations of materials, chemicals, etc. There is also breakthrough research - this is almost inevitably initiated by some scientist having a "lightning bolt" moment, envisaging a new possibility, making an intuitive connection, etc. It's based on having a good understanding of how the underlying science works, but there's no specific piece of data that points the direction - it's a hunch that drives the hypothesis.