Product strategy: What is product strategy? No really. What is it?
Answering your questions with a fusion of all of the best content on the interwebs.
What is a product strategy? In short, it is the plan for accomplishing the product vision. But don’t take my word for it. I have no idea what I am talking about. Here is what some others have said…
Product strategy quotes from the pros
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Fuel to the ‘no’ engine. ⑉ Anna-Marie Clifton Product Lead at Asana (@TweetAnnaMarie)
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Strategy connects the vision to the tactics. ⑉ Tim Holley, VP Product, Etsy (Tim Holley)
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[Product strategy] in short means: how do we make the product vision a reality, while meeting the needs of the company as we go? ⑉ Marty Cagan (@cagan)
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A plan that focuses product effort in order to achieve business goals ⑉ Anna-Marie Clifton Product Lead at Asana (@TweetAnnaMarie)
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How a company navigates its competitive landscape (and the dynamics most heavily influencing that landscape, e.g. technology) to achieve its objectives. Not to be confused with tactics, which are the specific steps put into place to manifest the strategy. ⑉ Jeff Weiner (Jeff)
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Product strategy is a tool that translates the vision/business goals into discernible and measurable problem statements married to metric/outcome that puts the product on an ever evolving path. ⑉ Satyesh Jha, Product Lead, Airtel, ex-Flipcart (Satyesh Jha)
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Product Strategy is a system of achievable goals and visions that work together to align the team around desirable outcomes for both the business and your customers. ⑉ Melissa Perri (Melissa Perri)
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The strategy you create will be the framework for your decision making… and help you make that decision… do we do it, do we not do it. ⑉ Mathew Cropper, Senior PM, Intercom
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It’s a high-level plan that helps you realise your vision or overarching goal. ⑉ Roman Pichler (Roman Pichler)
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“Product strategy is the set of Principles and decisions that drive action” ⑉ Andrew Yu, Product Manager, ex-LinkedIn
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…a set of principles and decisions — informed by reality (e.g. market forces, laws of physics, data) and caveated with assumptions — that you commit to ahead of development to ensure the greatest likelihood of success in achieving your vision. ⑉ Vince Law (Vince Law)
The linked resources above are some that helped me put this article together
Sooo…. What does a product strategy look like?
Ok so you are amazed at all the wisdom in these quotes but you still have no idea what this thing should look like. You are not alone. This is why everyone is writing articles about product strategy.
Although there is no hard and fast rule for how to format or display a product strategy, they often come in a few different forms:
- A single statement ☶, perhaps accompanied by reasons to believe
- A canvas or template ◫, but short and sweet — enough to be an easy to read one-sheet document
- A series of higher level statements ☰ (aka pillars or “strategic pillars”)
These can be accompanied by a high-level roadmap to help illustrate the planned execution (so far) on the strategy. However, be careful not to confuse a roadmap with a strategy.
Product strategy as a single statement
The single statement format is probably preferred as it fits nicely with the OKR system for goal setting. The OKRs become the stepping stones to the strategy.
Check out Martin Eriksson’s talk ▶ (Martin Eriksson) via Mind the Product on how this can look. Below is a screenshot for an OKR-to-strategy example:
As an example of the single statement product strategy format, I really liked how Tim Holley, VP of Product at Etsy layed out an example slide ▶:
What goes into a product strategy?
The question, it seems, is what does not go into a product strategy. Below is a list of excellent considerations for informing any business strategy. And if you are going to write a longer form document (preceded by a concise statement), these are some things that could be included (thanks to people that know a lot more than me like Roman Pichler, Satyesh Jha, and Wendy Gilbert). Anna Buldakova has some great questions listed out in her article here as well.
Can include:
- User lifecycles
- Value proposition
- Market and technology
- User personas
- Metrics and business goals
- 5 parts of the Strategy Diamond
- Epics that address the problem statements
- SWOT analysis
Should not include:
- List of features and bugs
- Near term problems that do not evolve
- Solutions that are not aligned to the vision
Can a product strategy be a long document with lots of detail?
No, because of the Empirical Product Strategery Funnel.
Few if anyone will read it and if by chance a few actually do read it completely, they likely won’t remember it. It goes without saying that they won’t be able to quickly reference it in regular conversations. The product strategy should not be a long document. I recently saw a giant page with a ton of small text and separately a 20+ page “strategy” slide deck. Both of these did nothing to help me understand the strategy.
If you must, at least ensure the longer form explanation is preceded by a single, easy to understand statement, a one pager, something digestible…
The product strategy should be easily shareable and remembered. It should be repeated at every all-hands meeting. It should be in your slide deck template. Your team should be constantly reminded by the vision and strategy. Developers, designers, marketing stakeholders, etc… should all be well aware and see it often.
How often should a product strategy change?
The product strategy should be reviewed regularly — perhaps quarterly, but can change as often as customer problems or business needs change.
Your product strategy should be as fluid as possible to cater to your customer’s ever changing needs. ⑉ Kunal Gokal, Product Lead, Farfetch inspired by Bruce Lee
What is the difference between product strategy and product vision?
You may have already figured it out as some of the quotes above actually define the strategy in relation to the vision. The product vision is the long-term, aspirational or idealized state of What is to be built and Why, while the strategy is the evolving, high-level plan for How to get there. The strategy is probably a high-level HOW with more specific HOWs and WHATs being described in objectives and epics or stories later on. I have heard some call the vision the What and some call it the why. However, neither of these by themselves will be enough.
The product vision is the long-term, aspirational or idealized state of What is to be built and Why
What does a product vision look like?
The content in this section is pretty much straight from this awesome talk by Martin Eriksson with some additional help from Pavvan Buddhdev (Paavan). I think this makes for a good checklist to judge a draft vision by.
The product vision should:
- Focus: The true north to guide the team. By informing what the team on what is important and providing consistency as the team changes over time. The vision becomes the north star for the team to aim towards.
- Motivate: Resonate with and inspire the team by communicating the greater purpose and meaning
- Change the world: Communicate how the product will bring positive change in the world
- Align the cross-functional team, management, and leadership on the goal
The product vision is:
- Customer centric rather than company centric, ultimately answering how the product will help the customer
- Concise
- Sets an audacious goal
- Avoids detail
The product vision should NOT:
- Describe a current product
- Be lengthy
- Play it safe
How far into the future is the vision and the strategy?
The length of time the vision and strategy covers will vary by team, product, and organization. Broadly speaking, the product vision is likely always multiple years. The product strategy should be no less than a year.
Well I hope this is half as good for you as it was for me. I am trying to learn as much as I can about product management and product innovation and this one was especially interesting because of all of the different takes on it.
Please let me know if you have any feedback or additional resources that I should add to my self-study backlog. And don’t forget…
The product strategy should be easily shareable and remembered. It should be repeated at every all-hands meeting. It should be in your slide deck template. Your team should be constantly reminded by the vision and strategy.
Resources for developing a great product strategy
- Article: The Product Manager’s Guide to the Strategy by Facebook PM Anna Buldakova
- Video: Product Strategy: Idea to Action by Asana Product Lead Anna-Marie Clifton
- Video: The Decision Stack- How to Develop Your Product Strategy with Martin Eriksson
- Video: Developing and Communicating Product Strategy by Etsy VP Product, Tim Holley
- Read: Product Strategy series by Marty Cagan
- Read: From Vision to Values: The Importance of Defining Your Core by Jeff Weiner
- Read: What is a Good Product Strategy by Melissa Perri
- Watch: Understanding Product Strategy by Satyesh Jha
- Watch: Product Strategy & the Time Poor PM with Matthew Cropper
- Read: Elements of an Effective Product Strategy by Roman Pichler
- Watch: Inspire Action with Great Product Strategy with Andrew Yu
- Read: WTF is Strategy by Vince Law
- Watch: Building Product Strategy with Paavan Buddhdev
