The document discusses the importance of having a lean and agile product strategy. It argues against a "big bang" approach to product development and deployment, noting the risks of overbuilding features, prioritizing the wrong things, and struggling to attract customers without validating the product with real users. Instead, it advocates for developing the product iteratively through regular deployments of "thin slices" of functionality, allowing the product vision to evolve based on customer feedback. This approach provides greater visibility, business value, adaptability to change, and reduces risk compared to attempting to deliver the full product solution at once without customer validation.

1. PRODUCT STRATEGY
OVERVIEW
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2. PRODUCT STRATEGY OVERVIEW
2
● What do we mean by product?
● What needs to be considered in product strategy?
● What are the implications if we don’t have a lean/agile product
strategy?

3. WHAT DO WE MEAN BY “PRODUCT”?
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Physical Products Physical Services & Experiences
Digital Products & Services Platforms & Ecosystems

4. WHAT IS PRODUCT STRATEGY?
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“Product strategy is defined as the road map of a product. This road map
outlines the end-to-end vision of the product, particulars on achieving the
product strategy and the big picture context in terms of what the product
will become.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_strategy

5. THE ROLE OF PRODUCT STRATEGY
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Product Strategy
Customer development/
Marketing & Sales Plan
Technical Architecture
Roadmap
Software Delivery
Roadmap
Corporate Strategy
informs
Product strategy is a dynamic process and evolving plan that should be regularly
informed by inputs from sales/customer development program, market research
and competitor activities, new technology developments, and so on.

6. PRODUCT STRATEGY CONSIDERATIONS
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● What customer problem do we solve / What value do we provide?
● Who are our competitors in this space? (could be analog)
● How are we differentiated? Why are we better than the status quo?
● What’s our business model and pricing? How will we measure success?
● How will customers discover us?
● How will we attract, engage and retain customers?
● How will we launch and rollout the product to customers?
● What is needed for customer onboarding, operations and support?
● What opportunities do we have for expansion in future?

7. ROLE OF THE PRODUCT OWNER
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Key responsibilities
● Product Vision
● Product Roadmap
● Business Model
● Success Metrics
Key behaviours
● Align to business and organizational goals
● Maintains focus on the customer and
delivering value
● Works across key stakeholders
● Unite teams and keeps them moving
toward “true north”

8. ALL PRODUCTS NEED A STRATEGY
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● Greenfield startup
● Established Fortune 500
● New market/ecosystem
● Mature market/ecosystem
● Internal product
Business Model Canvas

9. … THAT IS VALIDATED THROUGH REAL CUSTOMER USE
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10. CREATING SUCCESSFUL PRODUCTS IS HARD
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50% of product features are NOT USED
60-80% of development effort is REWORK
200x cost to change code vs. prototypes
Failed product launches, anyone?
(1) Several research reports indicate this number is ~50%. Here’s one: http://versionone.com/assets/img/files/ChaosManifesto2013.pdf
(2) and (3) IBM Requirements management white paper (December 2009)

11. EXAMPLE: “BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME”
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An established
financial services
corporation BankIt
plans to launch a
new product to
capitalize on a
relatively untapped
market with only a
few competitors
BankIt finally
launches its
product…
2 Years Later

12. BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME?
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An established
financial services
corporation BankIt
plans to launch a
new product to
capitalize on a
relatively untapped
market with only a
few competitors
BankIt finally
launches its
product…
2 Years Later
Competitor 1 adds
new product
enhancements that
were critical
differentiators that
BankIt had planned
for
BankIt fails to
achieve
targets and
attract and
convert
customers
Competition heats
up with startups and
established players
launching
comparable
products

13. RISKS OF “BIG BANG” APPROACH
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Failure to leverage small early releases to learn, validate and improve the product
with real customers can lead to -
● Overbuild features
● Prioritize the wrong features
● Struggle to acquire customers
● Failure to support end-to-end product lifecycle due to lack of pilot runs
● Can’t retire legacy systems as planned
● Lost opportunity cost of investing in better alternatives
● Competitors secure early pilots (and in turn, deals) with customers
● Business investment does not pay off

14. THERE MUST BE A BETTER WAY
● Learn about customer needs early and often
● Prototype, test and get real market feedback
● Pivot your product and features based on learnings

15. EXAMPLE: UBER PRODUCT STRATEGY ROADMAP
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2009-10
Riders & Drivers 1.0
San Francisco
2011
Riders & Drivers 2.0
National market
2012-13
Riders & Drivers 3.0
International (Europe)
Vision: “Everyone’s private driver”
Vision: “Where lifestyle meets logistics”
2014
Couriers - Food
UberFresh
2013-ongoing
Riders & Drivers 4.0
International (Others)
2014
Couriers - Parcel
UberRUSH
2016
Business Rider
Multiple Accounts, Expense
Receipts, Scheduled Rides
2015
Pool Rider
UberPOOL

16. COIN GAME
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17. COIN GAME
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Pass the coins from one end of the table to the other. At the end of each
round, how much “value” was delivered, in how much time?
Rules
● To pass a coin - slide 1 coin at a time using 1 finger only
● Coins passed in parallel have to be passed again
● Coins that fall off the table have to be passed again
Round 0 - Practice passing a few coins
Round 1 - Person N must pass all their coins before Person N+1 can start
Round 2 - Person N+1 can start passing coins as soon as they receive them
Round 3 - Same as Round 2, but time stops after 20 seconds
Round 4 - Changing conditions announced 10 seconds into the round

18. SUMMARY OF BENEFITS
Visibility and Decisions
Business Value
Adaptability
Risk
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19. SUMMARY OF BENEFITS
Visibility and Decisions
Business Value
Adaptability
Risk
19
“Big bang” deployment

20. SUMMARY OF BENEFITS
Visibility and Decisions
Business Value
Adaptability
Risk
Regular deployments
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“Big bang” deployment

21. SUMMARY OF BENEFITS
Visibility and Decisions
Business Value
Adaptability
Risk
Regular deployments
“Big bang” deployment
21
“Big bang” deployment

22. SUMMARY OF BENEFITS
Visibility and Decisions
Business Value
Adaptability
Risk
Regular deployments
“Big bang” deployment
Regular deployments
“Big bang” deployment
22

23. SUMMARY OF BENEFITS
Visibility and Decisions
Business Value
Adaptability
Risk
Regular deployments
“Big bang” deployment
Regular deployments
“Big bang” deployment
23
“Big bang”
deployment

24. “Big bang”
deployment
SUMMARY OF BENEFITS
Visibility and Decisions
Business Value
Adaptability
Risk
Regular deployments
“Big bang” deployment
Regular deployments
“Big bang” deployment
Regular deployments
Earlier/Additional
Benefits
Realized
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25. “Big bang”
deployment
SUMMARY OF BENEFITS
Visibility and Decisions
Business Value
Adaptability
Risk
Regular deployments
“Big bang” deployment
Regular deployments
“Big bang” deployment
Regular deployments
Earlier/Additional
Benefits
Realized
25
“Big bang” deployment

26. “Big bang”
deployment
SUMMARY OF BENEFITS
Visibility and Decisions
Business Value
Adaptability
Risk
Regular deployments
“Big bang” deployment
Regular deployments
“Big bang” deployment
Regular deployments
Regular deployments
Earlier/Additional
Benefits
Realized
26
“Big bang” deployment

27. “The only thing
CONSTANT
is change”
- Heraclitus, Greek philosopher
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28. LEAN/AGILE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT APPROACH
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29. DEVELOP A “THIN SLICE” OF THE PRODUCT VISION
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PRODUCTS
PLATFORM
INFRASTRUCTURE
CHANNEL DASHBOARD
CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE
APPS & SERVICES
“Thin slice”

30. PRODUCT-CENTRIC TEAMS
30Build
Learn
Measure

31. CONTINUOUS DESIGN & DELIVERY
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As Teams Continuously
Deliver Value
End State Solution Vision
Evolves Over Time

32. ITERATIVE DELIVERY ALLOWS FOR LEARNING & CHANGE
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33. STARTING MORE IS NOT BETTER
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● Sequencing work in small batches is faster than doing lots of work in parallel
● Limit the work in process (WIP) to the available team capacity
Brown AND GreenCAPACITY

34. TAKEAWAYS
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● A product or service is anything that provides value to customers (buyers)
● It may be a single product/service, but more often is a broader product
suite/platform/ecosystem with many sub-products & services
● Product strategy needs to consider the entire business model and operations in
support of providing that customer value
● Product strategy is dynamic and continuous; it evolves over time as new
opportunities and challenges emerge, and competitor threats arise
● Product strategy is not the same as the product vision or product features. The
strategy must include the steps along the road to achieving the overall vision

35. THANKS!
Natalie Hollier - nhollier@thoughtworks.com
Teresa Lee - tlee@thoughtworks.com
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