How to Know if Your Product Strategy Has WorkedβDear Reader,β Your Strategy can be perfectly thought-out, based on well-researched insights, co-created by Individual Contributors and Leadership, and contain sustainable advantages over alternatives. But if nobody understands it and you can't integrate it into teams' decision-making processes, the value of Product Strategy will remain locked. The degree to which Product Strategy is executable depends on many factors like your teamβs abilities, organizational structures, and more. But the two aspects I want to focus on in this essay are the following: An executable format: Can you translate the messy work of choosing and connecting components into formats that resonate? As mentioned in the Just Enough Strategy chapter, don't treat canvases or statement structures like the defining guardrails for your strategy. See them as simplified windows into what you're trying to say. β For measuring the execution of Analytico's Product Strategy choices, the key question is: "Twelve months from now, which three metrics would tell us that this Strategy choice has worked?" For a Strategy choice like expanding their market to upstart mobile-first eCommerce shops in the US, their metrics need to go beyond "Total Revenue" or "Number of Clients." These are reactive KPIs, but not proactive measures of strategic progress. Instead, they would use metrics like
Translating your strategy into metrics will feel particularly easy if you approach your strategy creation from the βAtomicβ perspective I discussed before; you assembled and connected strategy components to form the overarching strategy patterns. Here's where you can find the first two parts of this mini-series on the valuable attributes of Product Strategy: βPart 1: How to Stop Saying Yes to Everything in Your Product Strategyβ βPart 2: How to Build a Product Strategy That Fits Your Companyβs Focusβ Did you enjoy this one or have feedback? Let me know and reply. Hearing from you is what motivates me whenever I sit down to write this newsletter. If this newsletter isn't for you anymore, you can unsubscribe here. Thank you for Practicing Product, βTimβ Join my In-Person Workshops in BerlinI'm excited to bring my beloved in-person workshops back to Berlin in January 2025. You can choose between 1-day workshops on Product Strategy, Product OKRs, or Product Discovery OR get the full 3-day experience for you or your team.
What did you think of this week's newsletter? As a Product Management Coach, I guide Product Teams to measure the real progress of their evidence-informed decisions. I focus on 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.
This is the last newsletter before my annual writing break for the holidays. After this issue, I will return to your inboxes on January 31, 2025. Product Practice #347 My 2024 Annual Review READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Dec 20, 2024 READING TIME 5 min & 28 sec Dear Reader, What I focused on in the second half of 2024 After wrapping up the first half of 2024, the rest of the year was full of highlights. Stepping on stage at Product at Heart. Besides the book, this talk was probably the most...
This is the second to-last newsletter before my annual writing break for the holidays. After next week's issue, I will return to your inboxes on January 31, 2025. Product Practice #346 My Most Popular Ideas of 2024 READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Dec 13, 2024 READING TIME 3 min & 25 sec Dear Reader, These five ideas had the biggest impact on my own thinking or my readers and consulting clients throughout 2024: Treating Ways of Working Like Products The core message of my talk at Product at Heart...
Product Practice #345 Four Decision Tree Frameworks Product Managers Need to Know READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Dec 6, 2024 READING TIME 2 min & 54 sec Dear Reader, As a highly visual thinker, decision trees are one of my favorite ways to support product teams in making real progress and bringing structure to my thinking. Today, I want to share four of my favorite tree structures and use an outside-in view on Eventbrite to illustrate their usage. MECE Trees The MECE tree structure, invented by...