Product Strategy
Source Gerard Chiva in his book Product Roadmapping
A product strategy has the main focus on:
- Where to play? What customers to target?
- How to win? Value proposition and business model.
It gives a coherent response to an important challenge.
Basic elements of the product strategy
Challenge - What are the challenges, problems, or obstacles your product faces?
Market - Where will you play?
- Describe the market(s) in which the product will compete.
- Who is the target customer?
- What distribution channels?
Win - How are you going to win?
- What is your competitive advantage?
Capabilities - What capabilities should you have?
- What to be really good at?
Activities - What management systems are necessary? What processes and structures?
The Core of a strategy
Taken from [[Good StrategyBad Strategy]]
The core consist of the Challenge, Diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent actions.
Diagnosis
Defines the challenge. Identifies the critical aspects (obstacles) to focus on.
Guiding policy
Describes the general approach to address the obstacles identified in the diagnosis.
Coherent Actions
Coordinated steps to be taken to address the challenge aligned through the guiding policy.
An example
To a doctor, the challenge appears as a set of symptoms along with a history. The doctor makes a clinical diagnosis, identifying a pathology. The chosen therapeutic approach is the guiding policy of the physician. The doctor’s specific prescriptions for diet, therapy, and medication are the set of consistent actions that need to be taken.
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