![11Start With Why
Webinar Series
What Is a “Strategy?”
Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία stratēgia, "art of troop
leader; office of general, command, generalship"[1]) is a high
level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of
uncertainty.
… tactics are the specific actions used to achieve those
strategic goals.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/pm-today-strategy-webinar-30-apr-2019-190430230929/85/Start-With-Why-Meet-Your-Goals-with-a-Practical-Product-Strategy-11-320.jpg)
Start With Why: Meet Your Goals with a Practical Product Strategy
- 1. Meet Your Goals with a Practical Product Strategy Nils Davis Hannah Flynn With: Moderated by: TO USE YOUR COMPUTER'S AUDIO: When the webinar begins, you will be connected to audio using your computer's microphone and speakers (VoIP). A headset is recommended. Webinar will begin: 12:30 pm, PDT TO USE YOUR TELEPHONE: If you prefer to use your phone, you must select "Use Telephone" after joining the webinar and call in using the numbers below. United States: +1 (213) 929-4232 Access Code: 285-673-154 Audio PIN: Shown after joining the webinar --OR-- Start With Why Webinar Series
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- 5. Click on the Questions panel to interact with the presenters https://www.productmanagementtoday.com/webinar-series/start-with-why/
- 6. About Nils Davis I think I was born to be a product manager. I like to have my fingers in everything, and I love working with people and teams to help them achieve great things. I started in high tech as a technical writer. Some of my colleagues suggested product management would be a better use of my talents for persuasion and communication, combined with technical credibility. I started doing enterprise software product management in that long ago time when there were no classes or books on PM. I always wished I had the “secret” handbook about product management to help me get over the humps. Instead, I was lucky to work with excellent mentors across my career, who taught me about finding marketing problems, driving the creation of solutions, and taking the solutions to market effectively. Product managers are ultimately responsible for delivering products that create value in the world. My ultimate goal is to help us all create more value by ensuring every product is a solution to a meaningful market problem. And that every team creating and selling products is as effective as they can be. In my new book, The Secret Product Management Handbook, I’ve shared a lot of what I learned on how best to achieve this. About Hannah Flynn Hannah attended The University of Chicago, where she majored in Environmental Studies with a concentration in Economics and Policy. She now works with Aggregage on social media strategy and webinar production on Product Management Today and B2B Marketing Zone. Start With Why Webinar Series
- 7. 7Start With Why Webinar Series Agenda Why are we here? What is a strategy? What are tactics? The most important rule, strategy or no strategy How does strategy relate to product? What if?
- 8. 8Start With Why Webinar Series Feature requests from customers and executives went into the backlog, and every 2 weeks sprint plans would be created based on the most urgent customer needs. The product was being dragged along by momentary customer demands and executive ideas, not led by a coherent product strategy.
- 9. What’s Wrong With This? Common situation • Reactive • Small picture focus • Customer-driven • Tactical Desired situation • Proactive • Big picture oriented • Market-driven • Strategic
- 10. Poll
- 11. 11Start With Why Webinar Series What Is a “Strategy?” Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία stratēgia, "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship"[1]) is a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. … tactics are the specific actions used to achieve those strategic goals.
- 12. 13Start With Why Webinar Series High Level Plan To Achieve Which Goals? • Useful? • Grow revenue • Grow customers • More useful • Sell more to existing customers • Sell more to new customers • Reduce customer attrition • Increase market share
- 13. 14Start With Why Webinar Series Most Important • The best strategy will not work if… • … no one wants your product
- 14. 15Start With Why Webinar Series Turtles All The Way Down Problem your product solves for the market Strategy for building and delivering the solution Tactics for delivering on that strategy Tactics for delivering on those tactics And so on down to product and feature prioritization
- 15. 16Start With Why Webinar Series Goal: “Sell More to New Customers” • Our strategy might include • Target a new market segment • Grow our share of the current segment • Target a new geography • Find a new problem to solve and solve it
- 16. 17Start With Why Webinar Series Tactic: ”Start Selling in Germany” • Open sales offices in Hamburg, Munich, and Berlin • Train sales people • Create market launch • Localize product in German
- 17. 18Start With Why Webinar Series Linking Corporate Strategy To Product Prioritization
- 18. 19Start With Why Webinar Series Some Prioritization Techniques • Trust your instinct • “What's the worst thing that could possibly happen?” • Make sure that your boss's pet feature is handled • Strategy-based analytics The Secret Product Manager Handbook 19
- 19. 20Start With Why Webinar Series • We have thousands of features we could add – which ones should we add? • The strategy – and the tactics – help guide us • If the strategy is well-articulated, and not just “Grow” or “Be more profitable” Using The Strategy For Prioritization
- 20. 22Start With Why Webinar Series Analytics
- 21. 23Start With Why Webinar Series 1. Localize the product in Japanese. 2. Localize the product in German. • What’s the strategy? • “Penetrate Germany” • Which feature do we do? Simplified Example: Two Features Aller Anfang ist schwer
- 22. 24Start With Why Webinar Series • The actual strategy (for now): • Penetrate the German market • Address gaps against Competitor A • Enable faster selling in the Financial Services market • Address customer satisfaction issues Life Is More Complicated – It’s Why We’re Here
- 23. 25Start With Why Webinar SeriesTying The Features To A Market Model • What segment wants/needs this feature? • How does this feature align with various market themes? • Does this feature close a competitive gap? • Etc. • Independent of the strategy, by the way!
- 25. 27Start With Why Webinar Series • Strategies combine • Customers • Market segments • Market objectives or themes • Features satisfy • Customers • Market segments • Market objectives and themes • (The feature’s “market model”) How To Use ”Strategies” To Prioritize The Secret Product Manager Handbook 27
- 26. 28Start With Why Webinar Series • Questions to ask • Is it interesting to the customer who are important to my strategy? • Does it help me achieve the market goals of my strategy? • Will it help me be more successful with my target segments? • Does it help close an important gap against a competitor? Or open a gap against a competitor? • All of these can be weighted by importance, and then “added up” to get a “strategic score” • Map strategic score versus cost in a scatterplot “Quantitative Analytics” (Hint: Can Be Done Qualitatively)
- 27. 29Start With Why Webinar Series The Secret Product Manager Handbook 29 Inexpensive and valuable
- 28. 30Start With Why Webinar Series Quantitative Analytics vs. Your Intuition • Analytics results should align with your intuition • If they don’t • Is it a problem with the strategy? • Is a problem with your model of the relationships or the strategy? • Is it a problem with your intuition? • What about the boss’s pet feature? • You now have a framework for asking the boss useful questions • ”How does this feature align with the strategy?”
- 29. 31Start With Why Webinar Series Enables Better Conversations • “Why is this feature on the roadmap?” • “Why isn’t my feature in the roadmap?” • ”Please add this feature to the roadmap”
- 30. 32Start With Why Webinar Series Problem: Too Many Well-Aligned Features • Strategic alignment is a pruning function • But it can’t prune everything • Example: Ten high alignment features, but you can only do five • Options • Coherence – pay attention to dependencies • Decomposition – 80/20 rule
- 31. 33Start With Why Webinar Series • Common situation! • Back to your intuition • Even if the strategy isn’t explicit, you often hear its main components “in the air” • You can model the strategy and use it for analytics Problem: Strategy Not Explicit Enough
- 32. 35Start With Why Webinar Series Three Things You Can Start Doing Today Start creating a “market model” for your features • Customers, segments, competitors, themes - at least as “notes” on the feature Start Use your organization’s strategy to guide your prioritization, based on your market model Use Learn to have the analytics-based conversationsLearn
- 33. 36Start With Why Webinar Series What Happened With Radhika? As Product Manager, you should be focusing on the pieces of the strategy puzzle that affect your ability to deliver value to your customers.
- 34. 37Start With Why Webinar Series • Strategies and tactics are hierarchical • If you have a good market model for your features you can use the organization’s strategy/strategic goals to prioritize • You still have to use your intuition • This doesn’t solve all our prioritization problems Summary Slide
- 35. More From Me • The Secret Product Manager Handbook, available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle • Or via secretpmhandbook.com • Twitter: nilsie • Blog: secretpmhandbook.com/blog • Persuasion course: secretpmhandbook.com/persuasion • All The Responsibility, None Of The Authority podcast: alltheresponsibility.com • YouTube: The Secret Product Manager Handbook
- 36. Q&A Hannah Flynn With: Moderated by: Principal, NPD Associates Linkedin page: /in/nilsdavis/ Twitter ID: @nilsie Website: secretpmhandbook.com Nils Davis Site editor, Product Management Today Linkedin page: linkedin.com/in/hannahmflynn Twitter ID: @prodmgmttoday Email: hannah@aggregage.com Website: productmanagementtoday.com https://www.productmanagementtoday.com/webinar-series/start-with-why/