Build a Winning Product Strategy

5min - Your Path to Leadership

Author

Jean-Michel Van
December 17, 2023

Build a Winning Product Strategy

What happened this week?

This is the time of the year when we’re closing our product strategy for 2024 like many companies. Over the last 2 months, our team has been focusing on our next phase of growth and we’re all set now to execute for 2024! Product strategy is the glue that ties everything together from top to bottom.

Behind the scenes, each PM in my team needs to come up with their version of Product Strategy and Vision for their vertical. This is how mid-level PMs increase their impact and enhance their product leadership.

So grab your coffee and let’s dive in.

Here’s what you might have missed recently

👉️ Crack the PM Hiring Managers' Decision Framework (Link)
👉️ Craft your Product Career: PM to Product Leader (Link)
👉️ How Do I Build my Executive Presence as a PM? (Link)

Today at a glance

🧐 Behavioral Science Applied to Product Strategy

At its core, this is what PMs need to remember, the Social Identity Theory explains why people follow leaders.
Good leaders, like product managers, bring teams together by highlighting common goals and creating a strong group identity behind their Product Strategy, making everyone feel connected to ship their amazing product!

Hmmm…Why does Product strategy even matter?

Ever wondered if everyone gets what your product strategy is?

Ask one of your team members about it. If their answer matches yours, that's awesome. But you know better than me that it will not happen in many cases.

"Oh, it's that presentation you showed with ideas about what we'll build next, right?"

❗️ Product Strategy matters when your design, engineering teams or CEO aren't on the same page as you. If they start questioning if we're building the right stuff or going in the right direction, you need to sort that out fast. An organization that's lost trust in its Product Manager is not a good situation.

Fixing these signs is important to keep things smooth and make sure everyone is on the same page in building the product.

✨ Framing Product Strategy to Win Others

Communicating product concepts effectively involves framing them in simple language, and addressing fundamental questions of where, why, and how. And repeat them!

The key components are in this order

  • Mission > Vision > Strategy > Roadmap

Vision to Roadmap

What are the traits of great strategy?

  1. Problem-focused: Achieving clarity on the core problem

  2. Insight-driven: Grounded in both quantitative and qualitative insights

  3. Actionable: Details specific steps/cost to fix the issue

  4. Targeted: Pick only 1 or 2 big bets

  5. Pathway: Create the glue from the pain point to the solution

What does it take to Win in Strategy?

  • Build Alignment

  • Build Clarity

  • Build Focus

✅ Action items: from Vision to Roadmap

  • Mission

    • Your WHY?

    • It’s an evergreen mission statement, think 5 years

    • Resonates with people and the team.

    • Almost unreachable but inspiring

  • Vision

    • Make product/company visions concrete and time-bound.

    • Enable the team to visualize the future state effectively.

    • Bring a designer and paint your vision on paper, figma…

  • Strategy

    • Outline how your big blocks are going to achieve your vision

    • Leverage partnerships, risk mitigation, and differentiators (A quick SWOT gets you 80% there, template here)

    • Now, at this level, people need to believe in it. Clear alignment

  • Roadmap

    • Craft a roadmap with ordered, concrete steps

    • Focus on outcome (not output)

    • Adjust the level of detail based on the stakeholder (ie I always have 2 versions!)

Example with Tesla’s use case

Mission = Why does your product/company exist or purpose? (evergreen mission)

  • Accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy

Vision = desired future state for the company/product

  • Create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s transition to electric vehicles

Strategy = the logic/glue to reach the vision

  • Introduce an affordable, appealing electric car: start in the high-end market, progressively expand to increase unit volume and reduce prices with each new model.

  • Encourage households to adopt sustainable energy: provide reasonably priced zero-emission electric power generation choices covering transportation and household energy costs.

Roadmap= Steps for execution

  • Unfolds through the Roadster, Model S, Model X, Model 3, and so on.

That’s it! Now check your current product strategy, how does that compare?

Key Takeaways

For peak-performance product managers, understanding the distinctions between product concepts like Mission, Vision, Strategy, and Roadmap is crucial for effective communication across and within teams. Signs of confusion should be addressed promptly to maintain trust and alignment.

Strategy Health Check

  • 🚦 Monitor signs of confusion and lack of clarity in your teams

  • 🛠️ Fixing signs of misalignment: Address them ASAP

  • 🗣️ Communication Tactics: Use simple language and address key questions

Execution Opportunity

  • 🌐 Craft a compelling Mission: Develop an evergreen mission statement that resonates with the team and is inspiring.

  • 🚀 Concrete and time-bound Vision: Make product visions tangible and time-specific for effective visualization and alignment.

  • ⭐️ Strategy: Outline key blocks for achieving the vision, leveraging partnerships, risk mitigation, and differentiators.

  • 💡 Roadmap: Create a detailed roadmap based on outcomes, adjusting the level of detail for different stakeholders.

🌟 Feel stuck in your PM career?
Manage Your Career - Roadmap to Product Leadership

I’m putting together a live course to help you manage your career with intention so that you don’t make those costly mistakes.

Juicy Weekly Picks

👉️ Impressive Tesla’s 2nd generation of Optimus, its multi-purpose robot (Link)
👉️ Peter Thiel on the most important event in Facebook’s history (Link)
👉️ Annual state-of-tech presentation for 2024 by Benedict Evans (Link)
👉️ OpenAI taps Axel Springer for news in ChatGPT (Link)

Great Strategy books

👉️ The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen (Link)
👉️ Good to Great by Jim Collins (Link)
👉️ Product Strategy – Insights by Marty Cagan (Link)

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