Product Strategy definition and prioritisation
The impact of a poor product strategy
Initially, teams were asked to create their own strategy. The result was:
Weeks of back-and-forth discussions with the leadership team
Many ideas were rejected even after the teams had built them out
A bias towards tactical improvements rather than considering the market overall
New features were brainstormed or created by taking requests from just one or two customers. Weak evidence that these were desirable then led to poor outcomes. Creating many new features can feel good as everyone is busy, but it does not optimise your organisation. Finally, the worst effect of all this is a complex product, full of features that few people use. This not only leads to a waste of resources but also necessitates the maintenance and training of your organisation to support them
Introducing a strategy process
Strategy can come from many different sources, such as reducing operational costs, technology trends or improving user journeys. There can be many options to select from. As opposed to prioritising a backlog of small changes, these high-level focus areas allow an organisation to see the big picture and ensure results have a large enough impact. Examples of this would be the sign-up stage of a user journey or creating a self-service offering.
In order to add structure to the strategy, I created the concept of a Strategic Area. This contained several attributes, including a problem statement and Objectives and Key Results, used to measure impact.
Strategy workshop
I ran a two-day workshop with the leadership team to firm up each area to achieve maximum business impact.
For each potential strategy:
For existing functionality, user experience issues raised by customers or the UX team
Where relevant, a high-level UX vision showing new potential screen designs
High-level problem statements captured, such as too many steps in the sign-up process
We then prioritised the largest problem that needed solving. This would become the focus of the Strategic Area. Considering how big a problem is rather than how good a solution is helps to maximise the impact
Following this activity, we were ready to hand each Strategic Area to the product and engineering leads to further research.
The wasteful back-and-forth discussions were eliminated. The previous feedback that the strategy was unclear was replaced with everyone, including the wider business teams, understanding the direction. This new focus on Strategic Area OKRs allowed the leadership to measure the impact of changes. Overall, this was a powerful and positive change for the organisation.
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