💡Product Circle ⭕ Chat - 5 Product Strategy Mistakes with Roman Pichler
💡Product Circle ⭕ Chat 31 with Roman Pichler on the Common Strategy Mistakes—The Top Reasons Why a Product Strategy Fails.
Product Circle Chat is runs every second week as a Zoom call that anyone can join to talk all things product, product management and problem solving. Creating value for customers and the business.
“If you lack an effective product strategy, achieving product success is a lottery” - Roman Pichler
This Product Circle Chat was run on the 9 October 2024 at 6pm (Sydney Australia time) with Roman Pichler.
What is & Why have a Product Strategy
💡What is a Product Strategy
A product strategy is one of the most crucial elements in product management. It sets the direction and decisions for your product’s success by clarifying the target audience, key features, and overall goals. As Roman Pichler explains, “with a product strategy in place, we're in a good position to make meaningful decisions about the features and the user experience our product should offer.”
Without a clear strategy, product teams face significant challenges when it comes to making informed decisions. According to Pichler, the lack of a strategy makes it difficult to know who the target users are, why they would use the product, and what features to prioritize. "How can we then decide which features, which capabilities, and what kind of user experience the product should offer?" he asks.
💡 Why You Need a Product Strategy
A product strategy helps you make informed decisions, but it also provides the ability to prioritize and focus on what really matters. Pichler highlights that a good strategy enables teams to "say no" to distractions and focus on key benefits and standout features.
"Creating a strategy and evolving a product strategy involves making some clear and specific, and in some cases tough decisions—deciding who the product will address and who it won't," he explains.
Additionally, a product strategy lays the foundation for an actionable roadmap that communicates what will be built, the value it will provide, and when to expect it. "It's the basis for deriving something like an outcome-based, actionable product roadmap," says Pichler. This ensures alignment across teams and stakeholders, which is essential for keeping development on track.
Read more or Watch the Recording here
The 1st Product Mistake:
🚨No Clear Product Strategy🚨
One of the most common mistakes in product management is operating without a clear and articulated product strategy. According to Roman Pichler, “the first mistake I see people make is that there is no product strategy, or maybe I should say there is no clear, articulated product strategy.” While a product may be delivering value and functioning for a group of users, the lack of a clearly communicated strategy can lead to significant challenges in making the right decisions for long-term success.
Why Is This a Problem? ❌
Without an explicit product strategy, teams often struggle to make informed decisions about key aspects of the product, such as features, user experience, and technology choices. As Roman explains, “How can we then decide which features, which capabilities, and what kind of user experience the product should offer?” Without clarity on the target audience and the product's purpose, teams are left guessing, which can lead to misguided product development.
Moreover, without a clear strategy, prioritization becomes almost impossible. Pichler points out that a well-defined strategy allows you to “prioritize, focus and say no.” A lack of focus often leads to bloated product backlogs and resources spread too thinly across initiatives that don’t serve the overall goals of the product or business.
How to Solve It: Make Your Strategy Explicit
The solution starts with making the current strategy explicit. Roman advises, “The first step... is to make the strategy explicit and say, this is the strategy that the product currently implements.” This means taking the time to articulate the strategic decisions that might exist only in someone’s head—whether that’s the product leader, managing director, or CEO—and communicating it clearly to the entire team.
Using the Product Vision Board 📝
To help capture and communicate your product strategy, Roman developed the Product Vision Board, a simple yet powerful tool that breaks down the essential elements of a product strategy into four sections: target group, needs, product, and business goals. Here’s how to use it:
1. Vision 👓
The vision sits at the top of the board and represents the ultimate reason your product exists. Roman describes it as "a big, hairy, audacious, hopefully inspirational goal." For example, if you’re building a product to help people improve their eating habits, your vision might be "healthy eating."
2. Target Group 👶🏼👩🏼🦰👧🏾👳🏽♂️👩🏻👸👴🏾👵🏾🤴🏻
This section captures who the product is for—the prospective users and customers. Be specific. Include demographics and behavioral attributes. Pichler suggests, “make sure that you describe it in such a way that you can tell if somebody is a member of that group or not.”
3. Needs 🤕
This is where you define the primary benefit your product offers. What problem does it solve? What job does it help your users do? Roman stresses the importance of being focused: “Really focus on the main needs, the primary benefit that your product should generate.”
4. Product 🛍
In this section, you define what your product is and highlight its standout features. Roman advises focusing only on features that set the product apart and deliver real value. He says, “I really only list those features that are wow features, or you could say delight us.”
5. Business Goals 🎯
Lastly, state the business objectives your product aims to achieve. These could be revenue targets, profit margins, or brand development goals. Roman notes, “make sure that those business goals are sufficiently detailed and realistic.”
The Product Vision Board serves as a structured way to ensure your product strategy is clear, specific, and aligned with both customer and business goals.
Product Circle Chat 31 - Topic
Topic: Common Strategy Mistakes—The Top Reasons Why a Product Strategy Fails
The product strategy is probably THE most important product management artefact. But despite its importance, it is not always effectively used.
In Roman’s chat, he
discussed the five common product strategy mistakes,
explained how to avoid them and
maximise the chances of offering a successful product.
Product Circle Chat 31 - Video
Product Circle Chat 31 - Speaker
This Product Circle Chat was run on the 9 October 2024 at 6pm (Sydney Australia time) with Roman Pichler.
Roman Pichler is a leading product management expert who specialises in product strategy, product leadership, and agility.
He’s been working on product strategy for more than ten years and is the legend behind the Product Vision Board, Strategy Stack, Product Strategy Model, Go Product Roadmap (and much more helpful tools on his website.
Roman explains strategy practices in his book “Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age”, and one lucky person WON a signed copy of his book just for attending!
Roman writes an award-winning blog and hosts his own podcast and YouTube channel. He regularly speaks at international conferences and has given talks at Mind the Product, Industry Europe, Product Management Festival, Leading the Product, and many more. You can find more about his work by following Roman on Linkedin, Youtube or visit his Website.
The 2nd Product Mistake:
🚨Strategy Not Based on Evidence 🚨
One of the biggest traps in product management? Creating a strategy based on opinions or past experiences instead of hard data. According to Roman Pichler, “The second mistake I see companies make is that their strategy is not evidence-based.” Often, the ideas of senior leaders or product managers drive the strategy, but if it’s not backed by data, you're risking everything on wishful thinking. It’s building on on sand!
Why Is This a Problem? ❌
When your strategy isn’t grounded in evidence, you risk taking your product in the wrong direction. You’re essentially gambling on assumptions that might not hold true. As Roman explains, “If we use the strategy to make decisions about the user experience and features, it has to be based on data. Otherwise, we might take our product in the wrong direction.” This can lead to wasted resources and, ultimately, product failure.
How to Solve It: De-Risk Your Strategy
To prevent this, Roman suggests a four-step process to de-risk your strategy and base it on real-world insights. Here’s how to do it:
1. Capture the Initial Strategy 📝
Write down your current or initial strategy. Whether it’s for a brand-new product or a reworked strategy for an existing one, make sure it’s specific enough to test. Your strategy needs to be clear, testable, and focused so you can spot risks early. Roman advises, "It has to be specific and focused enough."
2. Identify the Biggest Risk 🎯
What’s the most significant risk to your product’s success? This is where you start. Is your target group too broad? Is your value proposition unclear? Focusing on the highest-priority risk ensures you’re not wasting time on less impactful areas. Roman says, “Choose the biggest risk that has to be addressed right now to avoid going down the wrong path.”
3. Select the Right Validation Method 🛠
Choose the right approach to test the identified risk. Here are some methods Roman suggests:
Customer Interviews or Direct Observation 👥: Use this if you’re unsure whether the problem you’re solving is real or big enough.
Surveys 📊: These can help you validate customer needs at scale.
Technical Prototypes (Spikes) 💻: If there’s uncertainty about whether your product can be built with available resources, create a quick prototype to test feasibility.
4. Decide on Next Steps 🛤
After gathering data, you’ll have three options:
Persevere 💪: If your data suggests you're on the right track, stick with your strategy and make small adjustments as needed. Roman explains, “You may have to adjust your target group or make the need statement stronger, but you're roughly in the right area.”
Pivot 🔄: If your data reveals that your strategy is flawed, it’s time to change course. Maybe you’ve discovered the market is too crowded, or the problem isn't significant. Roman shares, “If my healthy eating app isn’t working, I might pivot to offering workshops or writing a book.”
Stop 🚫: Sometimes, after multiple pivots, it’s best to walk away. If you can't find a viable strategy, it’s better to save time, money, and energy for the next project.
Timeboxing the De-Risking Process ⏱
Wondering how long this takes? It depends.
If you’re enhancing an existing product, validation might only take a week or two. But if you're working on a brand-new product in an unfamiliar market, it could take 2-3 months. Roman recommends setting a 4-week timebox with weekly review meetings to track progress. This keeps you focused and ensures the team stays aligned. If risks remain after 4 weeks, extend the timebox until you're ready to move forward.
The 3rd Product Mistake:
🚨Treating Strategy as a Fixed Plan 🚨
One of the most common mistakes in product management is treating a product strategy as a fixed plan, something you create once and then execute without revisiting. Roman Pichler captures this perfectly, saying, "Rather than seeing strategy as something done in a discrete stage or phase once in a while... think about it as a workflow, as a continuous process." In today's fast-changing markets, a static strategy simply doesn't work. You need to constantly adapt to new information, market shifts, and emerging trends.
Why Is This a Problem? ❌
Treating strategy as a set-and-forget plan is risky because it doesn’t allow for the flexibility required in today’s dynamic environment. As Roman notes, "Maybe that worked 20 or 30 years ago, but in today’s environment, with the amount of volatility we see in many markets… I don’t think that’s helpful." Without regularly revisiting and adjusting your strategy, you risk being blindsided by changes in technology, competitors, or customer needs, ultimately putting your product at risk of failure.
How to Resolve It: Establish a Continuous Strategizing Process 🔄
To avoid this mistake, Roman suggests turning strategizing into a continuous process.
Instead of only updating your strategy once a year (or worse, never), you need to regularly assess and adapt it. He outlines seven key steps to establish an ongoing strategy review process.
1. Weekly Strategy Reviews 🗓️
Set aside time each week to review your strategy. Roman recommends that the product manager or product owner spend 2-4 hours weekly to ensure the strategy is still relevant. Use this time to spot any threats or opportunities early on. By checking in regularly, you stay ahead of market shifts and ensure that your strategy remains up-to-date.
2. Quarterly Collaborative Reviews 🧑🤝🧑
While weekly reviews are more personal, Roman suggests holding bigger, collaborative reviews every quarter. These reviews should include key stakeholders and look at larger trends. This is also the time to make more significant adjustments to your strategy if needed. These sessions offer a chance to take a step back and assess the bigger picture.
3. Product Performance: KPIs and User Interviews 📊
Your strategy should be grounded in how your product is performing. Roman advises using key performance indicators (KPIs)—both customer and financial metrics—to measure the value your product delivers. But numbers alone aren’t enough. Roman stresses the importance of user interviews: “Complement quantitative data with qualitative insights to get a full picture.” Conduct user interviews at least once a quarter to gain a deeper understanding of your users’ needs and how well your product is addressing them.
4. Trends: Consumer, Technology, and Legal Shifts 📈
Keep an eye on broader trends that could impact your product strategy. Whether it’s shifts in consumer behavior (like the cost of living crisis), technological advances (think generative AI), or regulatory changes (especially relevant in industries like healthcare), these external factors can have a big influence on your product’s success. Roman recommends keeping up with these trends on a weekly basis to stay proactive rather than reactive.
5. Development Insights and Roadmap Changes 🛠️
As your development team works on the product, you may uncover new insights or face challenges that impact your product roadmap. Any significant changes to the roadmap might signal that your current strategy needs adjustment. Regularly review the progress and feedback from your development team to ensure your strategy remains aligned with what’s technically feasible and valuable for users.
6. Competitor Analysis 🔍
Ongoing competitor research is crucial to staying competitive. Roman recommends continuously monitoring your competition for any new products, features, or innovations that could disrupt your market. This helps you anticipate changes and avoid being caught off guard by a competitor’s move.
7. Portfolio and Business Strategy Changes 🏢
Lastly, pay attention to any changes in your company’s broader business or product portfolio strategy. Adjustments at the portfolio or business level often require you to recalibrate your product strategy to stay aligned with the company’s overall direction. Failing to do so can lead to a disconnect between your product and the business’s goals.
The 4th Product Mistake:
🚨Treating Product Strategy as Dis-connected 🚨
The fourth common mistake in product management is treating the product strategy as a standalone, isolated plan. As Roman Pichler puts it, "The product strategy exists to guide more detailed tactical product decisions," and failing to connect it to other key plans, such as the business or portfolio strategy, can lead to misalignment. This disconnect causes confusion and inefficiency, leaving teams unclear about how their day-to-day work supports the bigger picture.
Why Is This a Problem? ❌
When the product strategy is not aligned with higher-level plans, it leads to siloed decisions and reduces the product's ability to drive meaningful business outcomes. Roman emphasizes that this lack of connection creates a situation where "strategic decisions may not translate into the right product actions," resulting in a product that doesn’t fully serve the company's objectives or users’ needs. The solution is to ensure that the product strategy is linked to the broader business and portfolio strategies, as well as tactical product decisions like the roadmap and backlog.
How to Resolve It: Using Roman's Strategy Stack
To ensure your product strategy is connected to all relevant plans, Roman Pichler recommends using a "Strategy Stack." This stack ensures alignment from the highest business goals down to the most tactical product decisions. Here’s how the five elements of Roman’s Strategy Stack work together:
1. Business Strategy 🏢
At the top of the stack is the business strategy, which outlines how the company as a whole will succeed. This includes the overarching goals, such as market position, customer focus, and financial targets. As Roman explains, “A product exists to create value for people, users, possibly customers, and the business.” So, the product strategy should always reflect the company’s broader objectives, ensuring that every product decision supports the overall mission.
2. Portfolio Strategy 🛠️
In larger organizations with multiple products or services, the portfolio strategy comes next. This strategy ensures that all products in the company’s portfolio are aligned, maximizing their collective value. For example, Microsoft Office is part of the broader Microsoft 365 portfolio. Roman notes, "If you have such a portfolio... it can make a lot of sense to state a strategy for that portfolio." This ensures that each product contributes to the success of the overall portfolio and doesn’t compete with or duplicate other offerings.
3. Product Strategy 🧭
The product strategy sits at the heart of the stack, answering the key question: How will the product succeed? It outlines the target customers, value proposition, and business goals, serving as the foundation for the more tactical plans that follow. "The product strategy answers how a product will succeed," says Roman, making it the crucial bridge between the high-level goals of the business and portfolio strategies and the detailed execution plans below.
4. Product Roadmap 🛤️
The product roadmap takes the product strategy and translates it into actionable outcomes over a specific period, typically 12 months. Roman recommends focusing on outcome-based roadmaps, which outline what specific value the product will deliver to users at each stage. "The roadmap details the product strategy and makes it operational," he explains. For example, if your strategy focuses on improving users’ eating habits, your roadmap might outline outcomes like helping users track breakfast habits and then improving those habits.
5. Product Backlog 📝
Finally, the product backlog is where detailed feature development happens. The backlog must be tightly connected to the roadmap, with every backlog item contributing to the outcomes on the roadmap. Roman suggests copying the next outcome from the roadmap directly into the backlog and making sure all items in the backlog serve that goal. “That leads to a concise, compact product backlog,” he says, which keeps the team focused on what matters most.
How the Strategy Stack Works Together ⚙️
In Roman’s Strategy Stack, every layer connects to the one above it, ensuring alignment from the highest-level business strategy down to the day-to-day product decisions. Here’s how it flows:
Business strategy guides the portfolio strategy, ensuring that all products contribute to the company’s success.
Portfolio strategy informs the product strategy, aligning each product within the broader portfolio.
Product strategy drives the product roadmap, turning high-level goals into actionable outcomes.
Product roadmap dictates the product backlog, ensuring that every feature developed contributes to the strategic goals.
This approach ensures that every decision made on the ground level is directly tied to the company’s overarching goals, keeping teams focused and aligned.
The 5th Product Mistake:
🚨Ineffective Ownership of the Product Strategy🚨
The final mistake in product management is failing to effectively delegate ownership of the product strategy. Too often, the responsibility for strategic decisions is centralized with a senior manager, such as a Head of Product, Director, or VP. As Roman Pichler explains, “Quite often I find that a senior manager… is the person who is in charge of the product strategy and makes strategic product decisions." This approach can overburden a single leader and create bottlenecks in decision-making, slowing down progress and stifling innovation.
Why Is This a Problem? ❌
When one senior person is responsible for all strategic decisions, it leads to two major problems. First, the individual can quickly become overwhelmed, as they try to balance people management duties with strategic decision-making across multiple products. Second, it creates bottlenecks that delay critical product decisions, making it nearly impossible to establish a continuous strategizing process. As Roman notes, "There’s only so much time and energy a single person has.”
How to Solve It: Empower Product Teams to Own the Strategy 💡
The solution to this problem is to empower product teams to take ownership of the product strategy. Roman calls this "full stack ownership"—where the product team is responsible not just for delivery and discovery but also for the strategic direction of their product.
To ensure this works effectively, Roman suggests forming two types of teams:
1. Core Product Team 🧑💻
The core product team consists of the product manager or Scrum Product Owner and key development team representatives. While this team is essential for product delivery and decision-making, Roman emphasizes that when it comes to product strategy, this group "often doesn't have all the necessary expertise and knowledge." For this reason, you need to extend the team to include a broader range of stakeholders.
2. Extended Product Team 🤝
The extended product team includes key stakeholders who bring valuable expertise from across the organization. Depending on the product, this may include representatives from sales, marketing, customer support, finance, legal, or operations. As Roman explains, "Those are the stakeholders whose support and expertise you need to make effective strategic product decisions and progress your product."
By involving the extended team, you ensure that strategic decisions are informed by a broader range of insights, reducing the risk of siloed thinking and increasing the likelihood of success.
The Role of a Coach 🧑🏫
Collaborative decision-making can be challenging, particularly when senior stakeholders are involved. To manage this dynamic effectively, Roman suggests including a coach in the extended product team. This could be a Product Coach, Agile Coach, or Scrum Master—someone experienced in facilitating discussions and ensuring that all voices are heard.
The goal is to prevent the highest-paid person’s opinion (HiPPO) from dominating the discussion. As Roman puts it, “What you would like to avoid is that the most senior stakeholder takes over and thinks, ‘Oh, this is great! This is my show. I'll make all the decisions here.’” The coach helps the team avoid common pitfalls, like "design by committee," where weak compromises are made rather than optimal decisions.
Empowering Decision-Making 💪
For this approach to be effective, the product manager (or the person responsible for the product) must be empowered to make the final decision if the team cannot reach a consensus. Roman explains, "If the extended product team can’t make an agreement... then the product manager has to be empowered to have the final say." This ensures that the team isn’t stuck in endless debates and can move forward with clear direction.
Roman’s Slides
Product Circle Chat - Q&A
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Agreed on not making strategy a fixed thing!
We went from defining 5 year plans to a paradigm post-AI generalization where every 3-6 months we might need to redefine what it is, due to so many new things hitting the market.
Thanks for this post! I truly enjoyed (and learned) from it!