What Should Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery Allow You To Do?​Dear Reader,​ It’s tempting to focus the process of practicing Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery on technical correctness. Does the Objective not have a number? Cool! Do you interview one customer per week? Great - Let’s move on. But that’s a pattern of Alibi Progress: prioritizing technical correctness over everyday value. Whenever these ways of working feel like a tick box exercise –– either for management or from a thought leader's definition of “how to do them right” –– your chances of experiencing the real value go down. “I have to write the Product Strategy exactly as stated in the most popular template.” - No, you don’t. “My OKRs have to only be about Outcomes, or I’m not allowed to use them.” - No, they don’t. “I have to interview customers every week directly, or else I’m not doing Discovery and my products will fail.” - No, you don’t. Every choice you make about HOW you work should be in service of helping you and your team experience the core value of a practice. The core value of Product Strategy is enabling a team to confidently say yes or no to opportunities that come their way over the next 6 - 18 months. The core value Product OKRs provide is helping teams measure their progress toward strategic priorities by responding to their everyday decisions. The core value of Product Discovery is to reduce uncertainty regarding problems worth solving and solutions worth building through reliable evidence. If I were an “Anti Product Doctor,” here’s what I would prescribe to any product team to keep them busy with alibi progress: Try to talk to more users to unlock “the one insight” that will make you believe that a problem is worth solving. Rewrite your lagging OKRs after reading another thought leaders' book. Or translate your ambiguous product strategy into another canvas, hoping it will make it more tangible A more (seemingly) counterintuitive way of moving from being stuck to making real progress is to stop digging deeper into the area you're stuck in and look around you to spot opportunities to drag yourself out of your current rut. Focus on connecting the dots you have and on improving the practices that exist, rather than drawing new ones and having to seek connections over again and again. ​ Did you enjoy this one or have feedback? Do reply. It's motivating. I'm not a robot; I read and respond to every subscriber email I get (just ask around). If this newsletter isn't for you anymore, you can unsubscribe here. Thank you for Practicing Product, ​Tim​ What did you think of this week's newsletter? As a Product Management Coach, I guide Product Teams to measure the progress of their evidence-informed decisions. I identify and share the patterns among better practices to connect the dots of Product Strategy, Product OKRs, and Product Discovery. |
1 tip & 3 resources per week to improve your Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery practices in less than 5 minutes.
Product Practice #362 The Progress Wheel: My favorite Structure to Connect the Dots READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED May 9, 2025 READING TIME 4 min & 48 sec Dear Reader, Real Progress happens when you choose methods because they create value for you in your context, and you can use each domain to improve the others. To make Real Progress, teams need to understand and practice two core ideas: Putting the value of a practice before the selection of a method or framework is crucial to avoid getting...
Product Practice #361 Connecting North Star Metricsto Business Models READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED May 2, 2025 READING TIME 4 min & 45 sec Dear Reader, In many organizations, there's still a disconnect between product and business metrics. Product teams focus on customer-centric outcomes while business teams chase financial targets, with neither side fully trusting how one drives the other. When done right, a North Star Metric (NSM) can establish a middle ground that brings together both...
Product Practice #360 Why your Product DiscoveryFeels too Theoretical READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Apr 25, 2025 READING TIME 4 min & 17 sec Dear Reader, Over the past two weeks, I've explored treating Product Strategy and OKRs like products to avoid Alibi Progress. Today, let's tackle the practice that often gets dismissed as "good in theory, impossible in practice" — Product Discovery. When teams tell me "we don't have time for proper Discovery," they're usually stuck in Alibi Progress —...