From Vision to Version - Step by step guide for crafting and aligning your product vision, strategy and roadmap

Strategy Framework for Digital Product Management Rockstars

Daniel Thulfaut

• Editorial: tredition
• Año: 2022
• ISBN:
  9783347471863
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Computer Science
• Categoría: CAD-CAM

Have you ever wondered why some products or services just felt right to you? The truth is, success is not coming from an earth-shattering vision or from being charismatic. Success in product development and product management is about connecting the dots and translating the right vision into the right product.There is no foolproof recipe for product strategy. But there is a process that enables you to craft your unique strategy. A constant rhythm of product management that guides you both in daily business decisions and on your long journey towards realizing your overarching vision. This book lays out the complete process with templates and checklists and gives you everything you need to be a product strategy rockstar.These tools have been battle-proofed by companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and most of the startups you actually heard of. Think of them as a best-of-mixtape of product management practices put together in a unique, coherent package and process.

Expert Insights

Don’t forget all the tiny human actions that are part of every grand thing

Expert Insight from Claus Raasted, Director at The College of Extraordinary Experiences & Coach at McKinsey & Company

www.clausraasted.com

linkedin.com/in/clausraasted

“Dear team, I have great and wondrous news to impart to you! We have been tasked with the assignment of creating something brand new for the company. We need a vision. We need a strategy! We need ROADMAPS!”

…

“Why are you all looking at me weirdly? What part didn’t you understand?”

…

“Uh, boss… I think you’re on mute…”

When devouring business literature and business tips by the truckload (which I admit that I do), there are two things that become abundantly clear.

The amount of things that fail due to small, stupid, avoidable and foreseeable (and all too human!) mistakes… let’s just be nice and say that this number is not zero.

The amount of time and energy spent on trying to deal with exactly these sorts of small, stupid, avoidable and foreseeable (and all too human!) mistakes… is not impressive.

I’ll tell you what this looks like in practice.

Today I helped an old friend, who was sitting in a hotel room in China, halfway across the world, preparing for a Zoom lecture she was going to give. She needed help figuring out how to share her screen and wanted to be 100% sure she knew how before the presentation itself.

It took us a few minutes (at most) to solve the problem. Easy.

But before she had reached out to me, she had spent seven hours trying to figure out how to do it, growing increasingly frustrated as time passed.

Hanlon's razor is a saying that reads:

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

I want to take it one step further.

“Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by humanity.”

This wasn’t a stupid person. This was (and is) a highly skilled, incredibly competent human being. She just didn’t know how to make the thing do what she wanted it to do. And I did.

We’ve all been there. There’s no shame in it. It’s just part of the human experience.

So why am I telling you this?

Because next time you’re spending hundreds of hours and millions of euros on developing grand strategies, compelling visions and enticing roadmaps, just remember this simple truth:

It doesn’t matter how great the roadmap is if the CEO is on mute while she explains it. You can't plan everything in your strategy to the last detail. Humanity will cross your path before you can even print your 200 page playbook. But you can make your strategy so clear, easy and memorable that you can be sure your humans know how to connect the right dots in case of the one scenario you did not think of….

So do me (and yourself) a favor.

Don’t forget all the tiny human actions that are part of every grand thing.

And never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by humanity.

What Strategy Development & Poker have in Common

Expert Insight from Patrick Klug, Head of Product Management Digital at Kienbaum

linkedin.com/in/patrickklug007

About Internal Competition and Management of Believes

I am not a big poker player. To be honest, I only joined the poker evenings with friends because I enjoyed the casual conversations and having a beer with buddies. After not having played for almost a decade, I followed a friend’s invitation to a casual poker session. I barely knew the other guys, so I did not know what to expect. Is it going to be all poker or more jokes and beer? How experienced are they? How good are they in doing the math? How good are they in reading people? And can I read them?

There is a saying in poker, "You don't play the hand, you play your opponent." Let me explain why this is also true for developing a strategy.

On the same table with your competitors

As the head of product in a growing software company, I implemented the strategy process. We were around 70 employees back then. The management team, meaning the department heads, and the CEO shared the responsibility of developing, controlling and executing the strategy. Regardless of the fact, that we were in the same boat, the different motivations and hidden agendas surfaced very early in the strategy process. At first, I was confused as the strategy itself should help us in aligning our forces towards the common goals. The dialogue revealed the differences. We, the management team, were competing for the same resources, faced different levels of responsibilities in the various measures, and dealt with individual stakes. Eventually, we all had to play the dealer, the CEO.

While the number of players at the table vary, the stakes may differ and dealer might not be the CEO itself, the situation occurs in most companies. You need to consider the internal competition. Small blind, big blind, please!

Managing believes by applying facts

Every strategy process needs to discuss the status quo and gather information on where to invest resources for a particular outcome in the future. The measures need to be evaluated and aligned in order to optimize the ROI and improve margins. The proposed actions are different by nature. For example, increasing customer retention through content services is a different story than implementing a new BI infrastructure in order to speed up the intelligence process.

Some stories are more attractive than others. Beside the actual story content, its attractiveness depends on its presentation, timing and the audience. BI stories sell easier in a data driven company, whereas anything “digital” needs much more explanation in a non-digital-native environment. Yet, all stories need to be backed with facts.

In poker, you need to know when to raise the stakes and when to check. Your cards’ meaning (story facts like costs and expected revenues) changes throughout the game (strategy dialogue & process). As the dealer’s card unfold (proposed actions by others, strategy focus topics, …) a losing hand might turn into a winning one.

Take aways for product management

- Create a story for your product or portfolio that is easy to understand for all stakeholders. A good story leaves no doubt about how it fits into the company strategy. Marketing, IT and finance need to see its value.

- Reel in allies from other departments by considering their needs and motivation. Ideally, do so before the official strategy session. Build upon each other’s story.

- Know your facts and know when and how to present them. Back up your story with data.

Conclusion

I will play poker more often.

How multi-level roadmaps drive success for internet-of-things products

Expert Insight from Prof. Dr. Lutz Göcke, Professor for Digital Management at University of Applied Sciences Nordhausen

linkedin.com/in/lutzgoecke

Since its early days in the military context strategy development has been very closely related to planning, see e.g. Clausewitz. In this understanding, strategies are developed as precise plans that consider the likely futures and derived actions. In sports, these plans are understood as match plans.

In product development these precise plans are often considered as product roadmaps.

The value of product roadmaps for digital products has been long and controversially discussed. Digital products can be easily re-programmed or modified. Elements of a product are fully interactive and product development can be organized in complete decentralization.

These characteristics of digital products enable and require companies to deal with market and technological uncertainties in an iterative way. Navigating in conditions of high market and technological uncertainty, developing precise plans for digital products is often seen as a relic of the past. Precise planning of all the relevant features is an illusion for digital products, since one cannot forecast the acceptance of these developments.

A detailed product roadmap can lead to an alignment on flawed assumptions within or between teams. These interpersonal alignments on the course of a product can lead to an escalation of commitment where a path is continued to avoid sunk costs.

For digital products, the development of a strong product vision or the stronger focus on outcomes (e.g. OKRs) have become alternatives for product planning without focusing too much on specific features of a product. Outcome-based planning makes it easier for decentral product teams to make autonomous product decisions.

Despite the great challenges associated with roadmapping of digital products, it remains of great value, whenever the digital borders are crossed. Internet-of-things products include physical and digital artifacts.

For a successful development of smart thermostats, connected cars, smart light bulbs etc. companies need to create a holistic user experience out of digital and physical product elements.

This holistic user experience needs careful management of the interdependencies through an appropriate modular layered architecture and a multi-level roadmapping. Roadmapping in these contexts has to consider the shorter iteration cycles for digital products and the longer iterations for its host. The physical capabilities impact and limit the possibilities for the development of a digital product.

To illustrate this, let’s have a look at over-the-air (OTA) updates in the automotive industry. OTA enables automotive companies to update the software in the vehicle, without the customer visiting a service.

Tesla introduced OTA updates to their Model S in 2013 and continuously informs customers about new features. The updates are always limited to the capacity of the physical artifacts. It took other car manufacturers 7-8 years to integrate the capability for OTA updates in their new vehicles.

In these years Tesla developed from a new entrant in automotive into one of the most valuable companies in the world. One of the drivers to this success is Tesla‘s excellence in managing the interplay between software and hardware components.

Being solely dependent on a strong vision and outcome-based roadmap can maneuver internet-of-things companies in the wrong direction. Without proper foresight techniques and multi-level roadmapping that consider physical and digital artifacts, customers and companies could be stuck in old or insufficient versions of physical products.

Why it takes all the ru...

Índice

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Expert Insights
• Introduction
• About This Book
• The Holy Trinity of Product Management
• Crafting Your Vision
• Anatomy of Strategy
• Outcome Focussed Roadmaps
• Shaping a Roadmap Theme
• Process & Leadership
• The Product Manifesto
• What Now?
• Thank You Notes
• About the Author
• Expert Insights