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Purpose: Definition 1) define the stack, 2) work at a progressively finer level to plan product execution, and 3) align the company to that execution plan.Purpose: Evaluation 1)communicate the status of execution and 2) track how well the product team's work is driving company-level objectives.
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You need to have a strong mission, a strong product, and the ability to both make sell that to others (investors and employees) but also be able to execute.
I often hear something that isn close to this. Whether the execution piece is brought up or not is totally dependent on the type of person that you’re speaking with.
What is true and must have an immense amount of time baked into it is creating the mission of your business. Your question is probably, Why? Simply it makes finding customers, create meaningful messaging, team alignment, and even effect product creation. Vision and Mission turns into Strategy, let me break down.
Key Question: How do you divide the different elements of strategy into distinct concepts that interrelate and create a system that people can use to go through that process of defining mission and then ending up in a clear set of goals that are framed by that mission?
The product strategy stack is Reforge’s attempt to answer this question for our founders and companies.
The product strategy stack in terms of five elements, the top element is the mission. So the mission is ultimately the change the company wants to bring to the world.
Some companies use both a vision and a mission. I tend to think about those as, um, as similar. And so they, they operate at the same level within the staff that really set the framing, um, then is the company strategy. And so that is the very logical well-reasoned plan that the company has to turn that mission, uh, into being, I think as an industry, we put a lot of emphasis on goals and things that are measurable, um, and strategy is actually much more of a logical process.
And so it can be measured, but it's also important to appeal, to a sense of reason to be really clear about what are the advantages that a company has. Um, and how are you going to use those advantages to accomplish what you need to, especially in, um, really competitive markets. And so. The company level mission, the company level strategy, work together to provide that overall framing.
Um, and once you have those in place, then you've got the context you need to have in order to define the product strategy. And the product [00:10:00] strategy is really the plan for how our product, um, will drive its particular part. The company strategy. So how does, it fit within that overall ambition that the company has and then flowing from the product strategy is the next level of the product strategy stack, which is the roadmap.
And so the roadmap is the sequence of specific features or initiatives that implement the product strategy over time. And an important part of product strategy planning is making sure that the roadmap is sequenced in a way, um, that the company learns as quickly as possible and is able to drive impact as quickly as possible.
And then the final, the foundation of the product strategy stack, um, are the goals. And those are the outcomes of the roadmap that measure, um, whether or not you're making progress on strategy. And so a controversial point here is, uh, we say as part of this product strategy stack, Goals should actually come from roadmaps rather than roadmaps coming from goals.
And that's opposite to the way a [00:11:00] lot of companies work. In many cases, companies say our goal is to increase retention by 10%, and then the team will develop a roadmap to try to achieve that goal. But common pattern that I've seen with teams that do that is they end up focusing on the things that will move the needle the most in the short-term, rather than the things that are the right, uh, long-term decision for the business.
And so, um, we recommend people come up with a roadmap and then figure out the goals that are aligned with that roadmap and an analogy I like to use to help illustrate that point is if, uh, we say, you know, we want to go on a road trip from Los Angeles to. Vegas. Um, our destination is Vegas. One of the goals, one of the key progress indicators that we'll have on that trip is the number of miles driven, but that's not sufficient in and of itself for us to reach our destination.
We can move 200 miles in the right direction, but we can also move 200 miles in the wrong direction. Um, and so in [00:12:00] both cases we've achieved our goal, but we haven't necessarily made progress, um, on the ultimate outcome that we wanted. So it's really important to make sure that goals are well-defined relative to the strategy and that the company or the team doesn't, uh, overly focus on those goals at the expense of that longterm destination that the company wants to achieve.
how does your worldview fit into sort of the conversation that you hear a lot recently, which is the idea of focusing on inputs versus outputs.the ideal way to approach company building is to be much more focused on controllable inputs as opposed to being obsessed with outputs.
[00:12:38] Ravi Mehta: Yeah, I very much believe that, uh, that is an important approach. Um, you know, I like the, this idea that the score takes care of itself, that if you focus. On the fundamentals and doing those fundamentals well, um, then the longterm trailing indicators, whether it's growth, revenue, retention will flow from that.
But if [00:13:00] you overly focus on winning the game, sometimes you can miss the, the important details that are necessary, um, in order to actually get the team to the point where they can win the game. Um, and so we actually referenced in the product leadership program, um, the, the score takes care of itself book as a way to, to highlight that, um, the inputs are really important.
And one of the things, the product strategy stack is trying to solve for people, um, is to take the emphasis away from the goals away from. The outputs and the outcomes and put it more on, um, you know, what exactly is the team trying to achieve and How do you put together a plan to achieve that? And that's the reason that goals are at the foundation, um, rather than at the top.
Um, and so the mission, the company strategy are these incredibly important inputs into, um, that process. They provide the context and the guardrails. Um, and what we want to ultimately do is measure our, um, you know, measure our progress [00:14:00] against that, um, using the goals rather than treat the goals or the, those measurable outcomes as the destination themselves.
TLDR of Framework
Tops Down
Bottoms-Up
Definitions
Company Mission - The world your company sees and the change it wants to bring to that world. A good Company Mission is aspirational and has emotional appeal—it motivates your team to come to work every day and your customers to embrace the role your company plays in their lives.
Company Strategy - The logical plan you have to bring your company’s mission into being.our company strategy flows from your mission. It defines the plan by which your company will achieve its mission and and generate value from that mission. Often, companies think about strategy in quantitative terms (our strategy is to achieve a CAGR of 20% over the next 3 years). However, this conflates strategy (the plan) with goals (the measure of progress).
Product Strategy - The logical plan for how the product will drive its part of the company strategy. Product Strategy is a rigorously logical and executable plan. The Product Strategy defines how the product will drive the company's strategy and enable the company to achieve its mission. As a result, an effective product strategy cannot exist without a clear understanding of what the company seeks to achieve. An effective product strategy cannot exist in isolation.
Product Roadmap - The sequence of features that implement the Product Strategy which provides a thoughtful, proactive framework that product teams can use to organize their work. A well-defined Product Roadmap helps teams focus on the important task of long-term value creation for customers.Product Roadmaps tend to be defined on a 6 month to 1 year time horizon. [ Where you going, and how? Communication. Simple , sourth of internal alignment, delivery dates. ]
Product Goals - The quarterly and day-to-day outcomes of the Product Roadmap that measure progress against the Product Strategy.
Framework plus Example
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