Establishing an Effective Product Strategy Process
Developing a successful product is not down to luck or trying hard enough. Instead, product success starts with making the right strategic decisions. But as product people, we are often so preoccupied with the tactics — be it dealing with an urgent support request or writing new user stories — that we sometimes no longer see the wood for the trees. In the worst case, we neglect the strategic work and end up with an unsuccessful product. To avoid this pitfall, you should establish an effective product strategy process, as I discuss in this article.
Why a Product Strategy Process Matters
An effective product strategy process should ensure that a valid product strategyand an actionable product roadmapare always available — that a shared and valid approach to achieving product success is available at anytime, as the picture below illustrates.
In the picture above, the product strategy describes how a visionary, inspirational goalis attained. It includes the product’s value proposition, market, stand-out features, and business goals. The product roadmap shows how the product strategy is put into action by stating dates, measurable goals, and selected features. It provides the context for making the right tactical decisions including prioritising and managing the product backlog.
Having a valid strategy and actionable roadmap available at all times requires two complementing strategizing approaches, a timeboxed and continuous one, as I explain below.
Timeboxed Strategizing
Whenever you create a brand-new product or make bigger changes to an existing one, you will benefit from creating and validating a new product strategy. This is best done as part of a dedicated product discoveryperiodthat also investigates crucial user experience and architecture risks. This results in an innovation process like the one shown in the picture below.
Please note that the picture above depicts product discovery and product development as sets of overlapping activities rather than distinct phases or stages: Carrying out some development activities like UX design and high-level architecture as part of the discovery work sets up the development work and avoids having to use a sprint 0.
As it’s hard to correctly determine upfront how much time will be required to carry out the necessary discovery activities, for example, observing and interviewing users, testing prototypes, and validating pricing assumptions, I like to time box the work. If you are not sure which time box is right for you, then start with one month and hold weekly review meetings where you assess the progress and decide if and how to continue.
In addition to allocating enough time for focused discovery and strategy work, I find it helpful to adopt a collaborative approach. Bring together the right people and form a product discovery team. You will need development team representatives like a user experience (UX) designer, developer, and tester, key stakeholders such as a sales rep, marketer, and support person, and a Scrum Master, as the following picture shows.
A collaborative approach offers you several benefits: It leverages the knowledge and creativity of the dev team and stakeholders, creates a shared understanding, and builds strong buy-in. This reduces risk that the dev team and stakeholders don’t understand or support the product strategy. Don’t forget, though, that you lead the strategizing effort. This includes making a decision if no consensuscan be reached. The other discovery team members should help you create and validate the new product strategy; and the Scrum Masteror agile coach facilitates the process.
Make sure that the people involved in the discovery work continue to be involved as the focus shifts to developing the new product or features. The development team members should remain on the dev team; the stakeholders should continue to play their respective roles and be involved in reviewing and adjusting the strategy..
Read On …
To read the rest of this article and access the remaining tips, please head over to my website: https://www.romanpichler.com/blog/establishing-an-effective-product-strategy-process/
Learn More
To learn more about product strategy and discovery, attend my Product Strategy and Roadmap training course and read my book Strategize.
Source: https://www.romanpichler.com/blog/establishing-an-effective-product-strategy-process/
