“Strategy” is something that appears on pretty much every job post for pretty much every Product Management role irrespective of the level of seniority; it’s an integral part of the role. In fact, a very common piece of feedback Product Managers recieve during their performance reviews is to do with not being strategic enough.

All this poses a problem given that there appears to be absolutely no agreed upon definition whatsoever for what a good product strategy is supposed to look like or how to create one.

Here’s my attempt at answering these existential questions…

What is a Product Strategy?

A Product strategy is how you intend to meet the goals and objectives of your product.

The succinct nature of that sentence alone is enough to send many product and product-adjacent professionals into a frenzy in the furious belief that such a life-alteringly important concept could never be reduced down so tersely, but let’s not beat around the bush here; that’s what it is, and the more simply we can define it, the more narrowly we can focus on the important part of any product strategy - the output.

Here’s a useful quote to remember from Richard Rumelt’s book ‘Good Strategy / Bad Strategy’:

Good strategy is almost always… simple and obvious and does not take a thick deck of PowerPoint slides to explain – Richard Rumelt, ‘Good Strategy / Bad Strategy’

What does a Product Strategy include?

Speaking of output, let’s get into how to make one. In their excellent book ‘Cracking the PM Career’, Jackie Bavaro and Gayle Laakmann McDowell outline 3 components to an effective product strategy:

  1. Vision - an inspiring description of a destination we want to head towards. It should be a big, audacious goal that gets people excited.
  2. Strategic framework - this is the wooliest of the 3 components they suggest but it’s essentially like the a spec for your strategy. It describes things like the needs the product should address, the target market (the users and customers that should benefit from the product), the bets you’re making including which standout features or differentiators the product will have and why, and the wider business goals this product will help achieve. It outlines the overarching approach to achieving the vision.
  3. Roadmap - The roadmap is a prioritised and roughly estimated plan of the actual work that needs to be done to achieve the vision

Personally I would add an additional step between 1 and 2; Product Discovery, which bridges the gap between those two steps. I go into more detail about product discovery, as well as the vision and roadmap in separate articles, I’ve tried to keep it short here in an effort to not overwhelm you during an already deeply overwhelming topic.

Key point: Each part of the strategy above nests into the other, starting with the vision, which then informs the strategy, which is then broken down into an actionable roadmap. As the layers nest down, the timeframes become progressively shorter; the vision outlines a long-term direction for the product over the next few years, while the roadmap outlines the work that will be done in the coming months.

How to create one

Ok, now we’re down to the real meat of this article. Here’s a few tips I’ve found to help with the actual execution of a Product Strategy doc, specifically the strategic framework part (vision and roadmaps are covered elsewhere in this blog).

What about the format?

Let’s start with the obvious, what format should the document take? Word doc, Google doc, PowerPoint, Notion page, Spreadsheet? Many Product Managers are consciencious perfectionists by nature, so if you’re anything like I was when I first tackled this question you’ll be racked with concern that if you don’t present this document in the exact correct format you’ll lose all credibility as a Product professional, lose all respect from your manager and finally be revealed as the imposter you are.

So here it is, here is the definitive, 100% correct, industry-standard, consensus-backed correct answer you’ve been looking for - it absolutely does not matter. The Product Strategy document should be in whatever format is going to most effectively communicate the information it contains to your colleagues and stakeholders.

Ok, now we’re down to the real meat of this article. Here’s a few tips I’ve found to help with the actual execution of a Product Strategy doc, specifically the strategic framework part (vision and roadmaps are covered elsewhere in this blog).

Does an existing strategy exist elsewhere in the business that you can use as a template? Ok great, steal the format from that. Is there no existing strategy doc you can copy but your organisation heavily uses Notion for all other documentation? Ok great, write it in Notion. It doesn’t matter, write it in whatever format will communicate the strategy best for your colleagues.

Do your research:

Ok, now we need some actual content for the strategy. Market research, competitor analysis, user testing and interviews all provide a great foundation for informing the strategy.

Nest it within the goals of the organisation:

Consider the strategy and vision that this strategy will contribute to and call this out throughout. At a minimum, your strategy should directly tie into the wider company strategy, but ideally it will actually enhance or build upon it. Stakeholders will be more supportive of a strategy that enhances an existing one.

What to do once it's created

Ok, so the strategy is created. Phew! What a load off your shoulders.

Wait...

Now what?

Validating the strategy:

Once your product strategy is created, it’s time to test it. Start by determining the biggest risks your strategy may contain by asking yourself the following excellent questions from Roman Pichler’s book ‘Strategize’:

  • Are you confident that you’ve selected the right market or market segment?
  • How big is the market?
  • Are there any barriers to entry in the market?
  • Is the target group large enough to achieve your product’s goals?
  • Is the target group too diverse? (A target group that’s too broad will lead to you creating a bloated product with too many features that will take a lot of time and money to produce and not be specialised enough to meet the user’s needs).
  • Are you able to clearly state who is in your target group and who is not?
  • What specific needs are you solving for with your product?
  • If you’ve identified several needs, have your prioritised them and selected a primary need to address?
  • Are the needs specific enough for you to be able to determine when they’re met and assign relevant KPIs?
  • Can you list the top 3 features that will encourage people to use the product?
  • Does your product offer a clear and compelling advantage over competitor’s offerings?
  • Is it feasible to develop the product?
  • Do the required technologies exist to develop it?
  • Will you have to utilise third-party software in the creation of the product and if so, will the costs and licence agreement work for you?
  • Is it clear which business goals this product helps achieve?
  • Is it clear which business model will be utilised to monetise the product?

Review it regularly:

The product strategy is not something you should just set and forget. This is for two reasons:

  1. The market, economy, user needs, competitor landscape, these are all changing constantly and can therefore make your existing strategy outdated.
  2. Strategic and tactical work are bi-directional; the concrete fine-grained work in your product backlog needs to be informed by the product strategy, but the strategy also needs to be adjusted based on the findings from carrying out and shipping the work in the backlog, ie releasing a product increment into the market will provide critical data on KPIs and user needs that should be taken into consideration in the strategy.

Consequently you should review the product strategy at least once per quarter and update it as necessary based on the latest learnings.

When reviewing the strategy, considering the following questions will help:

  • Are there any new technological, regulatory or societal developments that will affect the product and need to be considered?
  • Has the competitive landscape shifted? Have the competitors launched new products or features? Are there new market entrants? Is your product still sufficiently differentiated?
  • Has the product roadmap changed in a way that requires an update to the overarching product strategy? (remember that strategic and tactical work are bi-directional, so a change in one can impact the other)
  • Have there been any wider organisational changes that affect the product strategy? Perhaps the organisation’s goals and strategy has changed and therefore the product strategy needs to be updated accordingly to ensure this product is helping the wider business get to where it wants to be.

General tips

Ask your teammates to quickly tell you what the strategy is:

If you’re not using your strategy as a guide to help you make decisions, then you’re not actually being strategic, and since these decisions are being made by all members of the product team every day, it stands to reason that all members of the product team need to have an intrinsic understanding of the strategy.

If you look at an engineer on your team and ask them to tell you the strategy in a couple of sentences, and they look back at you with confused indignation and say “how am I supposed to summarise that 30 slide presentation in a couple of sentences?” then it’s a sure sign your strategy is too complicated, self-indulgent and most definitely not being thought about when making executional decisions.

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