Understanding the efficacy of your product strategy

As the saying goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, you will never get there. That applies to most aspects of life, including product management. Yet, I’d say that having a vision isn’t enough to accelerate progress.

Let me ask you some questions:

How long does it take for you to decide whether to do something or not?
How easy is it for you to prioritize your work?
How do you know if you’re successful or not?
How do you differentiate from your competition?

The more you struggle to answer these questions, the less efficient your product strategy is.

A poor product strategy or lack of it will lead to:

Lengthy discussions about priorities
Unclarity on what matters most
Confusion about how to differentiate
Ever-lasting talks about what to do next

You better work on your product strategy to avoid the build-trap as a life sentence.

Understanding the ingredient of good product strategies

I won’t tell you which product strategy to use because if you google it, you will find gazillions of templates. I dare say most of them will fail if you misunderstand the critical ingredients of an outstanding product strategy.

I’ve worked with many different product strategies format, and that didn’t matter. What matters is having clarity on the following five aspects:

Consistent: Strategies don’t change every month. If that happens, you’ve got it wrong. It should last from 6 to 12 months and change gradually, not radically.
Audience: The strategy should give orientation on who you serve and who you don’t. You should know your primary and secondary audience and who’s not part of your target audience.
Differentiation: Products can only thrive if they do something different than the available options. When you try to do more or less the same in a better way, you’re trapped in a bloody price battle, which isn’t funny. You better know which differentiation factors you’re aiming for.
Clarity: Try doing everything at once, and you will fail. Products have different phases. Which one is yours? For example, in a growth phase, you better aim for customer acquisition, but in a maturity phase, you’re probably targeting retention. You need to know what you’re fighting for now because if you don’t, confusion takes over.
Trade-Off: What are you willing to sacrifice? Name your trade-offs because this will speed up decision-making. Companies tend to focus on what they aim to achieve without clarifying trade-offs. For example, a start-up may give up on profitability in exchange for hyper-growth, while a mature company wouldn’t do it.

Once you have the right ingredients, it will be easier for you to create a valuable product. It’s like cooking with the right ingredients, getting a delicious meal is a piece of cake.

People frequently ask me how to start with a product strategy, and my answer is always the same: collaboration and simplicity. Talk to key business people, customers, and bring a simple strategy to existence and move from there.

A question for you

What could you do today to sharpen your strategy and help your teams accelerate?

Note: Upcoming live training Product Owner Beyond Scrum on the 18th of March and 1st of April at 10 am CET. You may be interested to learn more about it. There are limited seats.

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