SUNDAY REWIND: Product strategy for beginners, Part 1

This week’s Sunday Rewind is the first of a two-part post from product designer Lassi Liikkanen on product strategy.

The post aims to get you productive and to understand why starting with a strategy is difficult.

Lassi starts by looking at what the absence of a strategy means for a digital product: it’s possible as long as everything around the product stays small and changes slowly, but when a product starts to grow it’s hard to repeatedly make good, quick product decisions unless you have one.

Lassi mentions some of the product leaders  – such as Marty Cagan and Melissa Perri – he has turned to in order to gain an understanding of how to put together a product strategy and recommends readers look at their work first hand. He then runs through a five step model for creating and benefitting from one.

He also differentiates strategy from roadmaps, saying: “At best roadmaps can help to approximate the likelihood of being able to complete on specific initiatives in a given timeframe with the known resources.” He also examines who is best placed to take advantage of a product strategy and looks at why one is necessary.

Read the original article: Product strategy for beginners, Part 1