PB 4/11 Strategy? Pick a stack, any stack...
Confused by so many different but similar models for product strategy? Based on my experience in learning the guitar, I suggest using All Of Them, and None of Them.
So many stacks. So little time.
A few weeks ago now, I saw this post by him on How do strategy, vision, mission, goals, and roadmap all work together? Complete with analogy from Ocean’s Eleven (although you have to be a subscriber to get that bit).
As I was about to link to it along with a screed of other links I was putting together for a newsletter I failed to send last week (long story).
Then I remembered all the other strategy → roadmap frameworks that I’d linked to while curating the product strategy and roadmapping sections of TheBestProductStuff.com.
Some of them are pictured above: Ravi Mehta and Zainab Ghadiyali’s Product Strategy Stack; and also Roman Pichler’s Product Strategy Model; and at a stretch Martin Eriksson’s Decision Stack. But you can also add in Gibson Biddle’s DHM model and Strategy Metric Tactic framework; and no doubt countless others.
And not for the first time it got me thinking: So many stacks! So many frameworks! What’s a poor Product Manager to do? Which should they use?
The same, but different..
All of these frameworks are similar but slightly different. Each has been created by someone smart, steeped in product experience, passing on a way of working that has worked for them, or others they’ve spoken to. So they all come from a good place.
But, there are differences and they are meaningful. Do you define your roadmap before your goals? Or the other way round? What about Principles? Do you need them? And when do you come up with them? If we’re all meant to be chasing outcomes - well, why haven’t any of these diagrams got the ‘O’ word on them? And in fact, how does all of this fit with Teresa Torres’s Opportunity Solution Tree?
And it matters - because these particular tasks: defining a product strategy; working out your roadmap - are key signs that you’re ready to step up in the product world. They are the embodiment of product leadership. If you’re asked to do it for the first time or even the 100th time, you want to do it well.
So - if your question is ‘which should I use?’; my answer is a resounding: ‘All of them. And none of them.’ And to understand that you need to indulge me as I tell you about my experience of learning to play guitar..
Sidebar: It’s a bit like learning the guitar
As anyone who talks to me for more than 60 seconds will know, I’m a very poor but enthusiastic guitar player. I have spent an absurd number of hours watching various online guitar tutors. I’ve read all the books (ok, I’ve bought all of them and read a few); subscribed to the courses; joined the Patreons'; downloaded the pdfs (the free ones and the paid for ones).
Here’s what I’ve learned from what I might laughingly call ‘my guitar journey’.
There’s only one ‘musical truth’ but there’s lots of ways to learn it. Scales; chord structures; harmony - these are constant truths. But sometimes it helps to hear a concept explained by different people in their slightly different ways. The variation is often in how the relationship between concepts is explained.
Learning this kind of skill isn’t linear. Organised courses try to make it that way, but with music the beauty is how concepts interrelate and to grasp that you need to keep going backward and off at tangents as well as going linear.
Some of the teachers will get you some of the way, but none of them will get you all of the way. And just because ‘Bob’ is good at teaching you concept A; doesn’t mean he’s the best guy to teach you concept B.
In order to get better, you have to stop watching stuff and dive in and try and make sense of it yourself
90% of what you’ve learned goes out the window when you’re playing live (which I only do occassionally, I should add)
The ‘All Of Them, and None Of Them’ strategy.
Like my guitar tutors - all of the frameworks and stacks and other bits of guidance you can get are relevant and useful, but in the end success comes from absorbing them and then putting it into practice.
With the guitar, all that ultimately matters is the sound that comes out when I actually play the thing. Not the particular way I’ve learned some scale or other. With product strategy and roadmapping - what matters is whether you can lead a process that results in a clear direction and a credible and measurable plan of action.
All of the different stacks and frameworks have something to offer. But none of them are likely to provide a turnkey solution that you can just copy and paste into your org.
The real leadership skill is in that translation process. And for that, you need two things: 1) to get to the kernel of truth that is common to so many frameworks; and 2) a healthy dose of self awareness.
The kernel of truth
In all the diagrams and frameworks there is a common thread of truth that even a group of highly opinionated Alphas each with their own online courses can agree on. And if I had to sum it up as three handy rules, it’s something like..
You need a higher level purpose It might be a vision. It might be a mission. You might have both. They might come from elsewhere in the organisation. But without it to give you focus, you will be flapping in the wind.
Your product strategy and roadmap are dependent on each other: A product strategy isn’t a real strategy unless it results in a clear and credible action plan (which is probably a roadmap - but could take a different form if you have anti-roadmap-itis) and a roadmap will be just a series of random deliverables unless its rooted in a clear product strategy. If you’re ever delivering one without the other: stop!
You have to agree how you’re going to measure success; measure it; and react to what you’ve measured. Goals. Outcomes. OKRs. Whatever. What matter is some set of processes or mechanism to make sure you define your ambition; track your progress and then respond to what you’ve learned. Without that, all of this is just busy work.
Success through self awareness
The final bit of this is the stuff that isn’t talked about too much. Which is the bit where you have to translate some perfect way of working into your often less than perfect organisation, which is where you need three particular bits of self knowledge.
Know yourself: What particular strengths and weaknesses do you bring to the process - how do you invest time effectively in order to build on the former and compensate for the latter?
Know your organisation: What works and doesn’t work in your organisation? What can you learn from others who have done something similar previously - whether successful or not.
Know your stakeholders: Who do you need bring with you on the journey and what’s the best way to do that? Great work that no-one buys into, isn’t actually great work.
(and yes, I could have added ‘Know your product’ into this - but that’s really just part of what you know about yourself).
And finally…
I’ve focussed here on a specific set of diagrams about a specific process. It’s pretty high level I agree, but it’s relevant to so much of product managment work - where there’s never a shortage of (apparently) great ways of working; and smart persuasive people advocating for them. I’ve found the same principles to be true in all cases
Read lots - but treat nothing as the unchallengable text
Look for the kernel of truth that’s common to multiple sources
Show awareness of yourself and your environment as you put your plan into action.
If you’ve found this useful - feel free to buy me a coffee!
Subscriber news!
During my silence last week, I reached the awesome milestone of only having 249,000 fewer subscribers than Lenny Rachitsky. Yes - I made it to 1,000. I tend not to talk about numbers on here, as but they’ve been steadily ticking up since I moved over to Substack…and that was a nice little milestone. Thank you for joining me on this little adventure!