General Principles
There is no shortage of strategy frameworks so I focused on identifying those I have found to be the most useful to Product Managers. I’m going to keep building and refining this list so it goes beyond a simple index into ways to incorporate them into your practice.
Market-oriented moves
In business, strategy is primarily concerned with navigating your company and their products to your objectives while navigating the market landscape. These objectives tend to fall into the following distinct market moves:
Create a new market with a new product Enter an adjacent market with an existing product Expand position in an existing market Bootstrapping strategy
If you are stepping into a new organization in a senior product role, e.g. CPO, VP Product, you’ll likely inherit product, people, and process that need real work. The problems and their priorities you’ll need to focus on won’t be immediately clear because the org would have probably fixed them already. You’ll be expected to start contributing immediately and all eyes will be on you from day 1.
Get clarity on the company
Centers of power & influence Inbound bugs & feature requests Existing product commitments: internal, external Define a “Snap Strategy”
Goal is to put something on paper ASAP that people can start to react to. It’s important to identify the sacred cows and hot spots. You want to make it clear that you are going to hit the ground running while also putting in place a system for gathering information and making decisions. What are the top 3 things the product org needs to deliver in the next 3 months. With the exception of any red flags, you shouldn’t focus on these addressing the issues listed below but you should call them out for others to react to Create a “Durable Strategy”
With an interim strategy in place you can
Establish the key strategic pillars Assess the market & customers General Purpose Theories & Frameworks
Aggregation Theory
Good Strategy / Bad Strategy - Rumelt
I believe Rumelt’s Good Strategy/Bad Strategy provides a useful and accessible framework for crafting strategy. Here’s his book, it’s worth reading: - Richard Rumelt The kernel of strategy:
Diagnosis of the challenge Guiding Policy to overcome the challenges in the diagnosis 7 sources of power: leverage, proximate objectives, chain-link systems, design, focus, growth, advantage, dynamics, and inertia/entropy. Subset of note: chain-link systems - Can we focus on a weak link in the system? Coherent Actions to implement the policy
References
Market Analysis
Competitive Forces
Porter’s 5 forces from his 1979 paper: and . Here’s a nice visual from : Summary of Porter’s 5 forces:
Competitive Rivalry: This force analyzes the intensity of competition among existing firms in the industry. Intense competition can lead to price wars, advertising battles, and other costly tactics that can reduce industry profitability. Who are the major competitors? What is the intensity of price wars, product innovation, or marketing battles? Is the industry growing or stagnant? Are there signs of consolidations, M&As, breakups? Are there high fixed costs leading to competitive pressures? Threat of New Entrants: This force assesses the ease with which new competitors can enter the market. If it's easy for new entrants to enter, the competitive intensity will increase. Barriers to entry: economies of scale, capital requirements, brand loyalty, regulatory hurdles. Reaction of incumbents: Are they likely to retaliate aggressively? How technology or trends lower barriers over time. Bargaining Power of Buyers: This force examines the power that customers have over the industry. If buyers have strong bargaining power, they can demand lower prices or better quality, which can reduce industry profitability. How concentrated is the buyer base? Can buyers easily switch to competitors or substitutes? How price-sensitive are buyers? Do buyers have strong negotiating leverage? Bargaining Power of Suppliers: This force evaluates the power that suppliers have over the industry. If suppliers have strong bargaining power, they can demand higher prices or better terms, which can reduce industry profitability. Number of suppliers relative to demand. Switching costs for firms to move to alternative suppliers. The uniqueness or criticality of supplier offerings. Integration threats: Can suppliers forward-integrate into your industry? Threat of Substitute Products or Services: This force assesses the threat of alternative products or services that can satisfy customer needs. If there are strong substitutes available, it can reduce the demand for the industry's products or services. Availability of substitutes and their attractiveness (price, quality, ease of use). Switching costs for buyers to move to substitutes. Trends that might increase substitute adoption (e.g., sustainability, technology). Barriers to Entry
Porter’s 6 major sources of entry barriers: economies of scale, product differentiation, capital requirements, cost disadvantages, access to distribution channels, government policy. Understands major barriers to entry: switching costs, regulatory.
Network effects
Same side & cross-side, multi-sided networks
Powers
: Scale economics, network economics, counter-positioning, switching costs, branding, cornered resource, process power Understanding the environment
and are a couple of frameworks used to understand complex environments. VUCA is an acronym based on the leadership theories of and , to describe or to reflect on the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of general conditions and situations. VUCA emerged from the Army War College in 1987 as the Cold War was coming to an end and took off in management consultant circles. Cynefin draws from the Welsh word for habitat and defines 5 states that should be considered when thinking about org designs.
Clear: sense-categorize-respond. “known knowns” In clear environments, organizations need to accurately sense the situation and quickly categorize and respond. Speed is really important as competitors are probably also tuned into the environment and operating at high frequency. Complicated: sense-analyze-respond. “known unknowns” Complex: probe-sense-respond. “unknown unknowns” Chaotic: act-sense-respond In chaotic environments, cause and effect are unclear. The only way forward is to act and avoid wasting time trying to discover patterns. Confusion: separate-assign-[sense|probe|act] As knowledge increases, there is a "clockwise drift" from chaotic through complex and complicated to clear.
You can learn more here: The Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN) has another interesting representation laid out in Exploratory/conceptual or declarative/conceptual models
Business Model Design
Lean Canvas
Strategy Assessments
Ten Timeless Tests
Will your strategy beat the market? Does your strategy tap a true source of advantage? Is your strategy granular about where to compete? Does your strategy put you ahead of trends? Does your strategy rest on privileged insights? Does your strategy embrace uncertainty? Does your strategy balance commitment and flexibility? Is your strategy contaminated by bias? Is there conviction to act on your strategy? Have you translated your strategy into an action plan?
Some more questions
Is your strategy coherent across businesses? Is your strategy aligned with your company's capabilities? Is your strategy communicated and understood throughout the organization? Is your strategy realistic and achievable? Is your strategy motivating and inspiring? Is your strategy monitored and adjusted as needed? Is your strategy embedded in the company's culture?
3C-4P
While a dated and simple framework, 3C-4P is useful when you are ad-hoc brainstorm sessions with execs as it helps provide a little bit of structure to a conversation.
Appendix
1. Market Analysis and Opportunity Identification
These frameworks help assess market conditions, customer needs, and competitive landscape.
SWOT Analysis: Evaluates strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. PESTLE Analysis: Analyzes political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors. Porter’s Five Forces: Assesses competitive pressures within an industry. Ansoff Matrix: Guides growth strategies by considering markets and products (e.g., market penetration, market development). Jobs-to-be-Done Framework: Understands customer needs by focusing on the "job" customers hire a product to do. Blue Ocean Strategy: Identifies uncontested market spaces to create new demand. 2. Vision and Goal Setting
These frameworks focus on defining clear, achievable goals and aligning the organization.
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results): Aligns teams around measurable objectives. BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal): Encourages ambitious, long-term goal setting. Balanced Scorecard: Tracks performance from financial, customer, internal process, and learning perspectives. Vision-Strategy-Execution (VSE): Bridges high-level vision to actionable strategies. 3. Business Model Design
These frameworks help develop or refine a company’s value creation and delivery model.
Business Model Canvas: Maps out how a business creates, delivers, and captures value. Value Proposition Canvas: Focuses on matching product offerings to customer needs and pains. Lean Canvas: A startup-oriented version of the Business Model Canvas emphasizing problem-solution fit. 4. Product Strategy and Development
Used for defining product direction, prioritization, and development.
Product-Market Fit Pyramid: Ensures alignment between product and market needs. RICE Prioritization: Ranks projects based on reach, impact, confidence, and effort. Kano Model: Categorizes product features based on customer satisfaction and effort. MoSCoW Prioritization: Classifies features into Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, and Won't-have. 5. Competitive Positioning and Differentiation
Helps establish a unique and sustainable competitive position.
Positioning Framework (by Ries and Trout): Defines how a product is perceived in the market. Perceptual Mapping: Visualizes brand positioning relative to competitors. VRIO Framework: Assesses a resource’s value, rarity, imitability, and organization for competitive advantage. BCG Matrix: Evaluates product portfolios based on growth and market share (e.g., Stars, Cash Cows). 
Sean Horgan
On Strategy
