Summary
1. Articulates strategy on why and how an opportunity should be pursued
2. Considers roles of competitors, partners, and regulators
3. Identifies related technologies, trends, and standards
4. Sets and drives a long term business strategy across product & service elements
5. Connects short-term and long-term product strategy and roadmap in complex and fast moving industries
Attributes
1. Articulates strategy on why and how an opportunity should be pursued
References
Understanding general strategic principles 2. Considers roles of competitors, partners, and regulators
References
Understanding the value chain: Understanding competitors
3. Identifies related technologies, trends, and standards
References
Accepts ‘s law: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”
4. Sets and drives a long term business strategy across product & service elements
References
Strategy processes - how to get the organization aligned on strategy
5. Connects short-term and long-term product strategy
Note: I’m rewriting this at the moment
Manage short-term objectives based on long-term plans. Be thoughtful about long term plans: 1) size your market, 2) know where you are, 3) find a hypothetical path to meet demand. Move towards long term plans using short-term Objectives (sub-goals) and corresponding Key Results (clear, unambiguous milestones to pace progress).
Simple frameworks like McKinsey’s Three Horizons look nice when presented out on a slide but they often hide more than they reveal. Here’s a quick overview on the basics:
Horizon 1 ideas provide continuous innovation to a company’s existing business model and core capabilities in the short-term. Horizon 2 ideas extend a company’s existing business model and core capabilities to new customers, markets, or targets. Horizon 3 is the creation of new capabilities and new business to take advantage of or respond to disruptive opportunities or to counter disruption. Steve Blank wrote the following in this : However, the trap of the Three Horizon model is not recognizing that today many disruptions can be rapidly implemented by repurposing existing Horizon 1 technologies into new business models — and that speed of deployment is disruptive and asymmetric by itself.
References
Strategy Frameworks
More senior PMs should be very familiar with common strategic theories and easily separate useful frames from buzzword bingo. I’ve laid some here in but these are pretty well tuned to my experiences in tech. Books
If I had to recommend one book on strategy, it would be Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy/Bad Strategy. I’ve included a few links to summaries below along with a few other must reads:
- comprehensive index of common strategic frameworks with great references to deeper reading by Mehrdad Baghai and others
Quotes
“Good strategy is coherent action backed up by an argument, an effective mixture of thought and action with a basic underlying structure I call the kernel.”
- Richard Rumelt Good Strategy Bad Strategy: the difference and why it matters
From : Most execution problems are really 2) Interpersonal problems (individuals) or 3) Culture problems. (difference between stated values and accepted behavior)