Do you even have a strategy?
TL;DR; You should!
If you think this is a rhetorical question, think again. Most product managers and entrepreneurs out there don’t really have a clear strategy for their products and businesses. All they have is their “instinct”, “gut feeling”, or whatever such a guessing game is called. At least, that’s my impression after almost 30 years creating and delivering software products. And yes, I’m guilty as well.
And when they, sometimes, have some sort of strategy, it’s not shared with everyone, making it almost useless. Communication is key!
After having delivered many products throughout the years, one thing I noticed, especially when such products were not that successful, is that the main cause for that “I-don’t-want-to-write-home-about” success was the lack of a clear strategy.
Strategic planning is too complicated
Yes, it can get complicated. There are so many aspects and so many ways to create the comprehensive strategic plan. Besides, everyone wants to see things getting done, it’s more fun. It’s worth taking a step back though. We could get deep into this subject, but let’s be honest, for many, many teams, all they need is to get the basics right. No need to get fancy. No extravagant slides. Just a document on which everyone can rely on to take the next step, take the right decisions, and measure their success.
Why it’s important
The main reason, in my opinion, that makes a product strategy so important is the fact that it helps you focus on what you’re trying to achieve. How can you be successful if you get on a meeting, decide a bunch of things, get all excited, get started, and next week, at the next meeting, the previous decision is not relevant any more? The focus is now on something else, because of numerous reasons that managers rationalize and force it to make sense. I have definitely seen this more than a handful of times.
It’s not easy to keep focus. You can get distracted very easily. Customers come and ask you do develop this or that feature, and they're willing to pay for that. That’s why you need a plan to remind you of your goal. Believe me, your team will get very frustrated with the lack of focus. They’ll get confused and the morale will go down very quickly.
Another essential reason is: your team, everyone involved in delivering that product, they need to understand why they’re doing that. Developers, QA, and even business stakeholders don’t see the purpose of that product, of their work. How do we want them to be committed and productive if they're lacking purpose? As I like to say, only a valuable team can deliver real value. That’s what customers want, that’s what the business need.
The minimum you need
Ok, it’s important, but then, how can we easily get started?
I like the following structure as the basis:
- Product Vision
- Objectives (and Key Results)
- Strategic Action Plan
- Roadmap
There are other aspects such as business and revenue model, market research, target market and others. Remember, this is not a comprehensive business plan, but rather a guide. That’s why I suggest starting simple, which is better than nothing, trust me.
This exercise must be completed together with business stakeholders, partners, development team. Everyone can get involved. Business stakeholders’ and higher management’s words might have more weight, but if you do this as a team exercise, you have a better chance of having a successful product.
Product Vision
The product vision tells everyone where you want to be in 3 to 5 years. Longer term than 5 years, and you have a mission. For those who have nothing but “gut feeling”, let’s start with a vision for the next few years.
The vision is your destination. Even if you take different paths, they must lead you to having your vision fulfilled. It must state the value you’re delivering, especially what makes you different from the competition. It must also say, somehow, that your product is aligned with your companies’ mission. Whoever reads your product vision statement, knows where you’re going.
No more than 2 or 3 sentences and yes, you don’t need to be super realistic, aim for more.
Objectives (and Key Results)
While the vision is your ultimate goal for that medium term period, the objectives are stepping stones. When you reach all of them, you know you’re fulfilling your vision (or close to).
You don’t need more than 5 objectives. For each of them, list about 4 key results, which are SMART goals that will serve as metrics for each of your objectives. As you achieve each goal, you’ll see your vision become reality, and this motivates everyone.
Once defined, all you have to do is to track them and adjust course as needed. Occasionally, you might do some adjustments to your objectives or key results, but keep your focus on the vision. Remember, your objectives are stepping stones to the vision.
Strategic Action Plan
This is where you list how you’ll achieve your objectives and vision. What actions and deliverables you need to work on, and how you prioritize them.
There are several ways to do this, and as a product manager, it’s your task to find what are the customer’s pain points through product discovery sessions. You’ll also have meetings with different stakeholders where everyone will bring their needs and ideas.
Once you have a big list of actions and deliverables, you need to filter out what’s not needed, and prioritize the rest according to the impact and ROI they bring. You, along with your team, will decide which criteria will be used to filter the items and draw the lines. You want to spend some time analyzing each item with their pros and cons.
The most important thing here is: go after any information you require, and make sure to include only the items which are taking you closer to your vision. That’s the focus I referred to earlier. It’s easy to get excited about some cool feature, but does it take you where you want to be?
Roadmap
The roadmap will give you a visual understand of how items have been prioritized. This is not a delivery document, but rather a strategy document. You can visually realize how your product evolves and how you get closer to your vision.
A simple “Now” — “Next” — “Later” table is enough, but you can also work with quarters to simply have an idea of how things might progress.
Such a roadmap and strategy should be reviewed by the team, at least quarterly, to account for any changes in the environment, the market, or any other happenings that might impact your goals or your capacity to achieve your goals.
Get Started
Since this not a book (maybe one day), it’s enough to get you started. I’m definitely not a guru in strategic planning, but suffice to say that not having any strategy is not helping anybody. The key here is to get started, to have focus, to have a purpose and a minimum plan. It’s not fun to work for a company every day without a clear purpose. Not everyone has the opportunity to be in a company where they can really embrace the purpose, but if you have, take that opportunity and build something exciting. You’ll thank me later.
What’s your experience with building a strategic plan? Or not having a strategy at all? Let’s all learn together.
