Development of product strategy: the method of rapid foresight Introduction the problem ( Future ) Foresight method Adoption to create product strategy Close out Method benefits Facilitator role Questions ?

1. Development of product strategy: the method of rapid foresight
Yury Kupriyanov
Dmitriy Bezuglyy

2. Presenters
Yury Kupriyanov
Business trainer, consultant
Head of practice of enterprise crowsdourcing
and knowledge management in WikiVote!
Dmitry Bezugliy
Business trainer, consultant
Founder and chief consultant
in System Approach, ltd.

3. Why do we need the product strategy ? “Since blind companies don't know where to go, they try to go in multiple directions”...
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4. What is the strategy ?
•The strategy is the choice about where we are going to succeed.
–Where do we want to go ?
–How we will get there?
–Why we will be successful ?
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5. Reality
•How many of you have clear articulated company strategy ?
•Is it easy to create product strategy ?
•Do you have proved methodology to create WORKING product strategy ?
•Is it easy to convince BOSS and Dev Team that it is RIGHT strategy ?
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6. What is main pitfalls in creation Product strategy ?
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7. Typical problems
•Too abstract
•Blind spots
•Too technical
•Too many visions
•Hallucination
•…
•Shortsighted
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8. What’s wrong with current tools?
•SWOT analysis
•Porter Five Forces
•Balanced Scorecard
•Business Model Canvas
•Lean Product Canvas
•…and so on

9. The same problem, even worse ?
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10. There is no future
•There is no time dimension in these models.
•There is no place for development and growth in these models.
•All of them do not take in account possible changes in environment of a product.

11. Without future perspective its impossible to hit the target
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12. The other method used to define strategy all around the world is a Strategic session
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13. Does strategic session work ?
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14. 50/50 chances
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15. The main reason is that classic strategic session facilitation technic also doesn’t has tools to work with the future …
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16. Foresight framework
•Foresightis asystematic,participatory, future-intelligence-gathering and medium-to-long-termvision-building processaimed at enabling present-day decisions and mobilising joint actions.
•Foresightis the ability to prepare wiselyfor the future.

17. “The best way to predict your future is to create it”
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―Abraham Lincoln

18. Foresight –future studies
S.Pereslegin, 2011

19. Foresight

20. But foresight
•Requires manyparticipants
•Oriented on long-term
•Has global focus
•And expensive
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21. Rapid Foresight (RF-method)
•2-3 days working session
•5 to 30 experts
•Scaling up to an industry sector, zooming in to a single product
•Immediately accessible visual roadmap (product timeline)

22. RF-method: phases
Preparation
•Research
•Analytics
•Session Planning
Working session
•Future map co- creation
•Product Roadmap design
•Roadmap validation game
Analysis
•Validate key findings vs market data
•Design the result report

23. Adopted working session structure
Trend analysis
Stakeholder analysis
Event analysis
Formats and policy analysis
Product positioning
Create roadmap
Validate Roadmap

24. 1. Trend analysis
•Defining the markets (Focus areas)
•Identifying key trends in each area.
•Identifying dynamics of each trend.
•Identifying a measurable indicator for a trend.
•Time horizon for a trend.

25. The future canvas (map)

27. Xiaomi
P1
P2
Trend as process

28. 2. Stakeholder analysis
•For each trend identify three types of stakeholders:
–Players
•Beneficiaries
•Opponents
–Recipients

29. 3. Event analysis
•Identifying key events of each trend:
–What event can change direction of the trend?
–What event can dramatically accelerate the trend? (Engage more people in it?)
–What events can terminate the trend?
•For each event indicate:
–When this event would be?
–What probability for this event?

30. 4. Formats and policy analysis
•Identifying key social interaction formats.
•Identifying key technologies for a product.
•Identifying key policies and tacit rules.
•For each of these indicate:
–What trend support our object supports?
–When would this object appear?
–What is the probability for an object?

31. Future canvas is Ready
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32. Part 2
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33. 5. Product positioning
•So far we have future landscape (All objects are placed on the Timeline).
•Now we can place on the same timeline:
–Features/products/platforms;
–Actions and special events.

34. 6. Create roadmap

35. 7. Roadmap validation
•To validate our product strategy roadmap we can use game storming method:
–A group divides into two teams: product team and environment team;
–Moderator gives a year (quarter) from now, and every team tells what happens in that year (quarter).
–Thus we validate a product roadmap vs future environment map.

36. Summary
Where do we want to go ?
•We defined future landscape and placed our product on it
How we will get there?
•We will create product features
•Undertake some activity or make some things happen
Why we will be successful ?
•We aim to the position where target will be
•We have proactiveshared vision of the future
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37. Key points
•For systematic thinking on the future you need a model and a method.
•Rapid Foresight is a method and a framework for facilitation strategic sessions.
•Key concepts: trends, stakeholders, events, technologies, formats, policies, products.
•Key features: gamestorming, rapid roadmap prototyping, unified future vision.

38. Rapid Foresight principles
Future is not predetermined.
We can create the future by our actions.
We must manage the future, not just study it.
Unified vision for the future is more important than precise.

39. RF-method: products case study
•Dance Radar startup: dancing, dating and clubbing foresight
•Wiki-meds.ru: how to changes patients, medics and pharmacy interactions
•1C-Bitrix (commercial CMS #1 in Russia) strategic session
•MTS (mobile operator) sales offices innovations foresight
•Etc..

40. Extensions and add-ons
•Extensions:
–Product lanes
–Technology startups growth
–Megaprojects
–New experts (competence profiles)
–Territory/urban planning
–‘Black Swans’ analysis
•Extra tasks:
–Knowledge gathering and sharing
–Experts identifying
–Spread of ideas/vision
–Assessment of participants
–Management and employees of future vision gap detection

41. Questions ?
Dmitry Bezuglyy
https://www.facebook.com/ dmitry.bezuglyybdl@system-approach.ru
Yuri Kupriyanov
https://www.facebook.com/yksi12
yksi12@gmail.com