Product Collective - Creating a useful product strategy

How to create a useful product strategy

At some point, you’ve probably thought, “I know I should have a product strategy, but I have no idea how to create one and what to do with it once I have it.” It’s a common quandary, so we pulled together some resources to help you build a strategy that you can use.

Meanwhile, in product news Google is both using AI and trying to compete with it, tech companies continue layoffs for differing reasons, and deep fake robocalls may soon become illegal.

What is a product strategy? The folks at ProductPlan describe a product strategy as a high-level plan describing what a business hopes to accomplish with its product and how it plans to do so. The strategy should answer key questions such as who the product will serve (personas), how it will benefit those personas, and the company’s goals for the product throughout its life cycle.

Product strategy depends on company strategy. Product can’t build a thoughtful product strategy without an overall company strategy to hang it on. If that’s missing, someone has to step forward to improve the process. Approaches need to be appropriate to the organization and leadership, rather than about personal aggrandizement or short-term politics. Rich Mironov suggests some things you can do if your company’s strategy isn’t clear.

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The New York Product Conference returns to the Times Center in Manhattan on April 18th for a packed day of:

• Keynote talks on product leadership, AI, product positioning, and more.
• Interactive working sessions on AI for PMs and Customer Research.
• Small group discussions, networking, an end-of-day reception, and more!
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BONUS: Purchase a Plus Pass or Superpass, and get access to a half-day workshop on April 17th (Influencing Without Authority) and/or access to online training programs.

This Week’s Video

Intro to Product Strategy. In this webinar, Gibson Biddle introduces his step-by-step approach to defining a product strategy. Then he shows how strategy informs Netflix product decisions with a recent scenario: Should Netflix roll out a “Netflix Party” feature, enabling members around the world to watch the same movie at the same time?

This video, and many more just like it, are available on our Member Hub. If you don’t have access to the Member Hub already, you can join the community today for free.

Chatting Product Strategy with Roman Pichler

Earlier this week, I had a chance to catch up with Roman Pichler to talk about common mistakes that people make when it comes to Product Strategy. It was a great conversation (and you can catch the entire thing on our Member Hub when we post it there soon) – and timely, considering my deep-dive on Product Strategy earlier this week (and this week’s newsletter focus!).

Roman highlighted several mistakes Product Leaders make on this front:

The first mistake we discussed is not having a product strategy at all or having one that's too vague. A robust strategy outlines the value proposition, target group, business goals, and distinctive features. Without this clarity, products risk becoming a 'Frankenstein' mishmash of features with little coherent value.

Another pitfall we talked about was creating a strategy that's either too broad, casting the net too wide, or too narrow, missing out on broader opportunities. The sweet spot lies in crafting a strategy that's just specific enough to guide effective decision-making without constraining creativity.

The concept of 'set it and forget it' just doesn't apply to product strategy. The market and user needs are ever-changing, necessitating a continuous approach to strategizing. This dynamic process ensures that the product strategy stays relevant and can adapt to new insights and changes in the market landscape.

The final common trap we touched on was relying on assumptions or gut feelings rather than evidence-based decisions. Each element of the product strategy should be backed by data and validated to ensure it's built on solid ground. This approach mitigates risks and aligns the product closer to market needs and user expectations.

The reality is that getting Product Strategy right is hard. It just is. So it’s no wonder why we fall into these traps so often. But if we’re thinking about it proactively and always revisiting it, we have a much better chance of succeeding.

AI is now going to tell you where to go. Google is experimenting with large language models to help users discover more places in Google Maps. The new feature will answer queries for restaurant or shopping recommendations using its LLM to analyze Maps’ detailed information about places and insights from over 300 million contributors to make suggestions for where to go. Why don’t you just show me what you want to look for? Samsung and Pixel devices will soon allow you to draw a circle around any asset and search for it. This “Circle to search” feature is Google’s attempt to remain relevant in search as it faces competition from various AI powered conversational interfaces. Not all layoffs are the same. As the calendar turned to 2024, tech layoffs came back but in different forms. Big tech companies are doing more focused cuts to increase profits. Mid sized tech companies are cutting to account for over-hiring during the times of low interest rates, and small start-ups are trying to free up runway so they can keep going while it’s hard to find new funds. Ever wonder why (if) the President is calling you? The Federal Communications Commission is moving to make unsolicited robocalls that use voices made with artificial intelligence illegal. The announcement follows a fake message, created with AI to mimic the voice of President Joe Biden, that told New Hampshire residents not to vote in the state’s primary election. This may be a sign of more AI regulation to come.

The product strategy stack. Difficulty prioritizing is often a strategy issue, not an execution issue. It’s impossible to make rigorous prioritization decisions when the guidance on how to do so is missing, unclear, or disconnected from what you are trying to do. This problem not only affects prioritization but also manifests in other hard-to-diagnose ways: muddied UX, miscommunication within teams, lack of coordination across teams, diminishing returns, product-market fit saturation, and negative impact on team morale. Ravi Mehta and Zainab Gadiyali suggest the best way to address these issues is to think about the relationship between mission, strategy, roadmap, and goals as a stack of distinct concepts.

Writing product strategy one-pagers. Setting the direction of our products involves choosing one out of many viable options. When you make these strategic product decisions, you need to get executive alignment for your proposal, or else you may run into troubles down the road. That leads to writing product strategy documents. If you’ve ever struggled with writing effective product strategy documents, Clement Kao put together an in-depth guide on crafting powerful and concise product strategy documents to help you out.

Resources and news curated by Kent J. McDonald.

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