Ask Gib: "How do all your product strategy frameworks fit together?
After two years and 4K miles of thru-hiking in Spain and the US, I'm re-entering the grid by answering a frequent question about my product strategy frameworks.
Foreword
I answer a few monthly questions, drawing from my experience as VP of Product at The Learning Company, Mattel, Netflix, and Chegg. My free “Ask Gib” product newsletter now has 33,000 subscribers. A few notes before I begin:
Five years ago, I wrote a 12-part essay on Medium that provides a step-by-step approach to defining your product strategy. The series now has 30K claps and a 77 NPS (Net Promoter Score, n=584). You can read the entire series here.
In December of 2020, I switched to Substack. I wrote nearly 60 essays and found a loyal audience of 33K subscribers. But two years ago, I disappeared. What happened?
The short answer: My wife (finally) retired from her full-time biotech role, giving us the time and opportunity for a few bucket list items. We hiked the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, then walked the Camino Del Norte and Costa Brava trails in Spain, bringing our thru-hike total to 4,000 miles. (If you want to learn more about our adventures, read our PCT substack.)
As I return to the grid, here are my upcoming online events:
On January 14th, I will present my new “Netflix’s 2025 Product Strategy” talk to Product Calgary. Click here to sign up.
On January 16th, I join a live stream with three members of my “Personal Board of Directors”— Melissa Perri, Teresa Torres, and Barry O’Reilly. We’ll compare notes on 2024 and talk about our 2025 goals. Click here to join the session. (I wrote an essay on Medium seven years ago detailing my “Personal Board of Directors” approach, and this essay now has 5K claps.)
I launched a new Product Strategy Workshop on Maven, and my third cohort starts on February 5th. There will be two sessions from 9-11:30 am PT, with the second session on February 12th. Today, the price is $250 but increases to $300 on January 21st, so act fast. I’ve gotten helpful feedback from the 230 students who have completed the course, so I’m excited about the upcoming third cohort. This link provides details and a 10% “Ask Gib” discount.
Ask Gib: “How do your product strategy models fit together?”
I present seven product strategy tools and models in my Product Strategy Workshops and essays but fail to provide enough context on how they fit together. So, here’s my best answer today.
Here's how the models fit together and my suggestion about the most helpful order of operations. Think of the tools working to answer four high-level questions and the specific models used to answer each.
1) In the long term, what are you building?
To answer this question, I apply the positioning and branding models. What is your product, what are the benefits it provides customers, what is its personality, and what is its “something bigger” or brand promise over time? (Read the positioning and branding essay here— it’s got 12K claps.)
I also use the GLEE Product Vision model to define a long-term, step-by-step plan to get big over time. How will your startup first “Get big,” what’s the next stage it will Lead, and how will it successively Expand in a step-by-step way moving forward? (Read the “GLEE” essay here.)
2) What are the company’s high-level priorities?
The GEM model helps assess the company’s overall priorities to build alignment. I ask executive teams to force-rank Growth, Engagement, and Monetization for the entire company and assign a proxy metric for each element. (Read the GEM essay here.)
3) What are your hypotheses for how to deliver the product?
The DHM model answers, “How will your product Delight customers in Hard-to-copy, Margin-enhancing ways?” Articulating these hypotheses is the foundation of product strategy. (Read the DHM model essay.)
Once you articulate a set of product strategies, the SMT lockup model— which forces you to assign Metrics and Tactics to each Strategy— helps companies to measure progress or determine whether their product strategies — their high-level hypotheses— are valid. (Here’s the SMT essay.)
4) How does the work fit together over time?
Roadmaps include a high-level executive summary of the company's product strategy. Each swimlane's product strategy provides a more detailed roadmap for its “pod” than the high-level product strategy. Roadmaps indicate when teams plan to deliver projects and how the work will fit together over time. (Roadmap essay.)
Last note: An overall product strategy v. a swimlane’s product strategy
Sometimes, my notion of a “swimlane” isn’t fully understood. When I refer to a swimlane, I intend to communicate a “pod” or a part of an overall product organization. For example, Netflix has Personalization, Localization, and Non-member growth swimlanes, among others, within the overall product organization.
For me, a high-level product strategy for the overall product organization includes the following elements:
Positioning and brand promise
Product Vision
GEM prioritization
SMT for the overall product, along with a high-level executive summary of the company's roadmap
Individual product leaders define their SMT and roadmap for each swimlane, which is more detailed than what is presented in the overall company product strategy. Developing a strategy is an iterative, tops-down/bottoms-up process, where the work of the overall product leader and the folks who work for him/her eventually meet in the middle.
I encourage individual product leaders to create a SWAG (Stupid Wild Ass Guess) for the company's overall product strategy, as it's good practice for the future when they will lead the product organization. The strategy within each swimlane helps define the high-level product strategy, and the two have a lot of back-and-forth.
Conclusion
If I haven’t enticed you to check out my complete Product Strategy series on Medium, the link is below. I am also very excited about my upcoming Maven Product Strategy Workshop on February 5th (with a fourth cohort on April 1st). Here are the links to both:
“How to Define Your Product Strategy” series on Medium
Gibson Biddle’s Product Strategy Workshop on Maven (with a 10% coupon attached to this link).
Now that I am back on the grid, I’ll answer more “Ask Gib” questions via 2-3 essays each month. It’s good to be back!
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Thanks,
Gib