Products like Netflix, Facebook, Instagram & ect. may seem an overnight success, however, in reality those great products are usually the result of a well executed product strategy. 

The idea of a product might pass through a person’s brain in a microsecond, but bringing it to life, refining the approach, and even creating the right space for inspiring the winning idea requires a strategic intentionality that filters product thinking through a funnel (1).

Putting a product strategy in place will help you with the following: 

• Give you clear answers to the “What”, “Why”, “Who” & “How”
• Give your product teams alignment and direction in the prioritisation process
• Help achieve your company’s and product’s vision 
• It’s a key part of product-led growth
• Helps with strategic thinking when making decision
• Brings focus to the company

I’ve worked in one particular start-up (won’t mention the name here) where neither the vision nor the product strategy was defined and trust me it was one of the most difficult environments to work in as a product manager. There was no alignment across the product org, decisions which features to work on were formed through a gut feeling and completely arbitrary. The lack of direction simply left heads spinning and pivoting, wondering which direction to invest time, energy, and resources. 

Product strategy acts as a bridge between what the company wants to achieve (Product vision) and how the product and engineering teams are going to steer the company towards that goal (Product roadmap &  development plan)

Now that we’ve established that a product strategy is pretty key to the success of your product,  let’s look into some of the things you need to look into to build a product strategy: 

1. Define your product vision

It all really starts with a Product vision. Product strategy defines a product’s journey. And as with any journey, you must have a clear idea of where you want to go. Many product teams mistakenly believe that product vision and product strategy are the same thing, but they are not. A product vision, or product vision statement, describes the overarching long-term mission of your product. Vision statements are aspirational and communicate concisely where the product hopes to go and what it hopes to achieve in the long term. (3) Try answering what would you like your product to do, and why?

2. Understand the problem you’re solving

We build products that help our customers in fixing the problems they are facing. This is how we provide value to customers. Problem definition is crucial as it forms the baseline for every product feature that will follow. This also makes it much easier to then assess any product decision that is formed in terms of the value it is providing to customers.

You need to find the sweet spot which is a fine balance between what the user needs and what the business goals are.

3. Know your customer!

I am not referring to the standard KYC process during onboarding here. This is more about deeply knowing what your customers want so that you can build features that they’re actually going to use. You can get to know your customers by interacting with them through community forums, setting up Zoom calls with them, meeting them in person and ect. Know that point 2 and 3 are related here. Once you understand your customers better you will also understand their problems deeper which will lead you to work on features that are going to be providing inherently more values.

4. Set product tenants and design principles in place

Put some product tenants and design principles in place – these will form the DNA of your product and act as guidelines for when you develop features. 

5. Define success metrics

It’s not enough to set a direction—it’s also essential to measure how fast you are moving towards the goal. Metrics help a team measure performance and know if they are on track.

If you’re looking for practical recommendations on how to choose proper metrics, I recommend starting with Objectives and Key Results, or OKRs. In this model, objectives are what you want your company to achieve, and key results are how you intend to measure that objective. What numbers would move? Objectives should be inspiring, while key results should be measurable. (4)

References

(1) Gibson Biddle Product Strategy Template Book

(2) https://productled.com/blog/netflixs-2020-product-strategy/

(3) https://www.productplan.com/glossary/product-vision/

(4) https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/product-strategy

https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/product-strategy