Your Strategy Can't Help You If It Can't Help You Say No during Execution

​Dear Reader,​

Stephanie walked out of her strategy presentation feeling confident. The executives had nodded approvingly. Every field on her strategy canvas was filled in. Her product strategy for GearSwap, an outdoor gear marketplace, conveyed a clear message:

“The GearSwap marketplace will proactively help weekend warriors and professional adventurers alike match trip challenges with the right gear through peer-to-peer and professional seller options across all outdoor categories.”

Two weeks later, three requests landed on her desk:

• A competitor launched gear insurance with 12-hour equipment replacement
• Their largest reseller demanded integration with custom warehousing software.
• Customer support data showed demand for water sports equipment.

Stephanie pulled up her strategy doc to prioritize. Instead of clarity, she found endless ways to justify each request. Gear insurance? It could help both buyer segments. Warehousing integration? Supports their sellers. Water sports? Just another category.

This is what I call Alibi Progress: A strategy that ticks all the template boxes but fails to create value when teams need to make actual decisions.

The problem isn’t that Stephanie didn’t create a strategy—it’s that she optimized for theoretical correctness instead of practical usefulness. Her strategy couldn’t help her say no because it never made real choices.

Most product strategies fail this same test. When a new opportunity emerges, teams can’t use their strategy to decide. They escalate, debate, or try to rationalize doing everything.

Strategy has one job: helping you confidently say yes or no to opportunities.

Ever since I started following his work, collaborating on a piece with Ravi Mehta was a big dream of mine. Following his tremendous support for my book, Real Progress, we put together a complementary piece for his blog and newsletter. In it, I break down:

• Why indecisive strategies create decision paralysis
• How strategic components work as interconnected dials (turn one, others adjust)
• The specific path from strategic choices to measurable quarterly goals
• How strategy, goals, and discovery form a continuous Progress Wheel

Thank you for Practicing Product,

​Tim​

PS.: I had the pleasure of appearing on Jason's One Knight in Product Podcast and enjoyed every minute of it:

Tim Herbig - Stop Making Ali... Dec 5 · One Knight in Product 55:54   ​

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Who is Tim Herbig?

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.