(2020-02-17) Cagan Product Strategy Overview

Martin Cagan on Product Strategy - Overview. how do we decide which problems they (Product Teams) should solve? Answering that question is what product strategy is all about.

they are not putting enough concentrated brain power behind the most important things in order to achieve the results their company needs. (cf BottleNeck)

Remarkably, most product organizations I meet don’t even have a product strategy

bad strategy is the active avoidance of the hard work of crafting a good strategy. One common reason for choosing avoidance is the pain or difficulty of choice. When leaders are unwilling or unable to make choices among competing values and parties, bad strategy is the consequence.” – Richard Rumelt

Whatever the goal is, your strategy is how you’re planning to go about accomplishing that goal.

While there’s many forms of strategy, what I care about here is product strategy. Which in short means: how do we make the product vision ((2020-08-04) Cagan Product Vision Vs Mission) a reality, while meeting the needs of the company as we go?

it requires four things that are not easy for most companies:

  • The first is to be willing to make tough choices on what’s really important;
  • The second involves generating, identifying and leveraging insights;
  • The third involves converting insights into action;
  • And the fourth involves active management without resorting to micro-management.

product strategy helps us decide what problems to solve; product discovery helps us figure out the tactics that can actually solve the problems; and product delivery builds that solution so we can bring it to market.

The insights might pertain to the dynamics of our business, our capabilities, new enabling technologies, the competitive landscape, how the market is evolving, or our customers.

product strategy starts with focus, it then depends on insights. And insights come from study and thought.


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