Product Direction · Nacho Bassino · 2021
Many authors have articulated at length what a ‘Good Strategy’ looks like - but few have shown a reliable approach to create one. Most strategy books leave you feeling a little lost. Product Direction does a commendable job of defining a step by step guide to creating a product strategy, defining a strategic roadmap and setting OKRs.
Key Insights
The essence of product strategy lies in selecting the right problems to solve, breaking them down into actionable opportunities, and setting clear, measurable objectives. To achieve this, a well-defined sequence is essential: first, set the product strategy; then, define the strategic roadmap; and finally, establish objectives and key results (OKRs). A strong strategy brings benefits like alignment, autonomy, focus, and scalability, which are crucial for successful product development.
However, many companies stumble when it comes to implementing a product strategy. The most common reasons include a lack of a structured approach, poor insight generation, frequent changes in direction, lack of accountability, or inadequate communication. Strategies can also fail if they are set at the wrong level—either too high-level and vague, or overly detailed and restrictive.
A robust product strategy should describe a clear path toward realizing the product vision. It needs to focus attention on a set of opportunities and activities that align with the company's broader goals. The key components of a sound strategy include diagnosing the current situation, selecting a few critical opportunities or problems to address, and setting guidelines for how the team will execute the strategy. The balance is vital: a strategy that's too broad, like "increase sales by 20%," lacks actionable direction, while one that’s too detailed, such as outlining 50 projects for the year, can become overly restrictive and lose focus.
To create a product strategy, it’s essential to gather insights from various sources, such as internal company data, customer feedback, market trends, and performance metrics. Involving the right stakeholders ensures that the strategy is both grounded in detailed knowledge and aligned with high-level objectives. Co-creating with stakeholders can help build buy-in, but it’s important to avoid over-complicating the process. Feedback and consensus should be sought after initial insight gathering rather than during every step, to prevent analysis paralysis.
The process of creating a strategy typically begins with gathering and distilling relevant information, followed by generating insights that highlight significant problems or opportunities. Using structured frameworks like the Opportunity Solution Tree (OST), Porter’s Five Forces, or the Blue Ocean Strategy’s ERRC (Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, Create) model can clarify where to focus efforts. Once potential opportunities are identified, it’s crucial to select just a few that will drive the most significant impact. Prioritizing these opportunities helps concentrate efforts on the most promising areas, ensuring that resources are allocated effectively.
A well-crafted strategic roadmap serves as a communication tool that outlines the intended direction and key milestones without becoming a rigid plan. It should reflect a balance between providing a clear direction for the near term while allowing flexibility for longer-term exploration. The roadmap should describe challenges and opportunities rather than dictating specific solutions, leaving space for experimentation and discovery.
OKRs are a powerful method for aligning teams and driving progress. They combine aspirational goals with measurable key results, setting clear directions while empowering teams to act autonomously. Objectives should be ambitious, while key results need to be specific, measurable, and time-bound. Teams should aim for stretch goals, where a score of around 70% reflects solid progress rather than falling short. Regular check-ins help teams adapt their plans and adjust strategies based on what they learn along the way.
Ultimately, a product strategy should not be static. Continuous review, iteration, and adaptation are necessary to ensure that the strategy remains relevant and responsive to changing circumstances. By focusing on a few high-impact objectives, involving stakeholders wisely, and keeping communication open and clear, companies can navigate the complexities of product development with agility and purpose.
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Unique in the Crowd: The Privacy Bounds of Human Mobility · Montjoye, Hidalgo, Verleysen Blondel · 2013
We study fifteen months of human mobility data for one and a half million individuals and find that human mobility traces are highly unique. In fact, in a dataset where the location of an individual is specified hourly and with a spatial resolution equal to that given by the carrier's antennas, four spatio-temporal points are enough to uniquely identify 95% of the individuals. We coarsen the data spatially and temporally to find a formula for the uniqueness of human mobility traces given their resolution and the available outside information. This formula shows that the uniqueness of mobility traces decays approximately as the 1/10 power of their resolution. Hence, even coarse datasets provide little anonymity. These findings represent fundamental constraints to an individual's privacy and have important implications for the design of frameworks and institutions dedicated to protect the privacy of individuals.
There are significant privacy risks posed by mobility data. Our movement patterns are highly unique. This research challenges the common assumption that anonymisation methods such as removing personal identifiers can sufficiently protect privacy. Even with reduced spatial or temporal resolution, re-identification remains likely due to the uniqueness of mobility patterns.
This paper underscores the challenges of protecting user privacy in services that collect or use location-based data. Product managers need to carefully consider privacy safeguards in the design of location-based features and ensure that robust mechanisms for data protection are in place.
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Book Highlights
Most companies don’t need to update their models that frequently because of two reasons. First, they don’t have enough traffic (i.e., enough new data) for that retraining schedule to make sense. Second, their models don’t decay that fast. Chip Huyen · Designing Machine Learning Systems
When we ask about learning, we’re really having a conversation about risk. Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden · Lean UX
The difference between a product you love and a product you tolerate is often the microinteractions you have with it Dan Saffer · Microinteractions
You shouldn’t limit your sprint team to just those who normally work together. Sprints are most successful with a mix of people: the core people who work on execution along with a few extra experts with specialized knowledge. Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky & Braden Kowitz · Sprint
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Quotes & Tweets
The best definition of product positioning I have seen yet: “Create a space inside the target customer’s head for ‘best buy for this type of situation’ and to attain undisputed occupancy of that space.” Ivan Zhao
Companies exist at room temperature. It’s a founders job to inject heat. Tobi Lutke
Criteria to keep in mind when starting a new project: - I already have some information on it in my second brain. - It’s aligned with one of my 12 favourite problems. - It brings me energy (vs drains energy). - It aligns with my values and beliefs. - It solves a real problem in my life. - I have a concrete deadline. - It’s realistic to get done. - It’s fun. Tiago Forte