Emergent product strategy is a term used to describe a product strategy framework that evolves over time in response to changes in the market or the needs of customers. It is different from traditional product strategy, which is more static and relies on a set plan that is implemented regardless of changing conditions. Emergent product strategy allows businesses to be more flexible and responsive.
I have written earlier about the most important competencies for product teams (see The Most Important Competence). But I haven’t yet written about the most important framework for thinking about product strategy. There are several good frameworks for thinking about product strategy, but my favorite is the Product Scorecard (aka “Product Scorecard” or “Product Scorecard Framework”).
The idea behind the Product Scorecard is simple and powerful. You start by identifying the company’s highest-order business goals (e.g. growth, profitability, etc.). Then for each of those goals, you identify the key metrics that you will use to determine if you have achieved that goal.
For example, if your company has a business goal of doubling revenue by 2020, then you would identify the following key performance indicators (KPI's):
● Revenue
● Average paid subscription
● Average revenue per user
● total number of users
● monthly active users (MAU)
● user growth rate
● daily active user (DAU)
Product strategy is a key concept in our product management toolkit. The term was first introduced in the software industry in the mid-1990s as a way of discussing the larger context in which product teams work. Before then, almost every company had what was called a “business strategy” which was typically a single page document that tried to capture the overall market, the company’s positioning, and the key objectives the company wanted to pursue.
The business strategy was typically updated every few years or so, and was typically created by a business development or Marketing team. The product strategy concept was meant to apply much more broadly to the organization and the products we create. It was meant to include things like market strategy, customer strategy, growth strategy, revenue strategy, and operating expense strategy.
The product strategy is where we discuss the big picture, and the many specific objectives we have for our products. It is the principle means by which we align the product team around the common purpose of creating valuable and compelling products.
The purpose of product strategy is to ensure that the product efforts of the organization are aligned with the business objectives. What makes something a product strategy rather than a business strategy? A product strategy is intended to drive product efforts. It is a plan intended to guide the efforts of product teams in the execution of the business strategy. We have many forms of business strategies, but for a product company, the most common business strategy is to pursue something called a “moon shot.”
A moon shot is a term that refers to an ambitious yet highly unlikely but potentially very valuable goal. For example, a common business strategy might be to pursue building a billion dollar business. This might sound far-fetched, but it’s really not. There are many companies that have very conservative business strategies, and a few that are very aggressive.
But most companies have some combination of conservative, aggressive, and/or medium-risk business strategies.
The point is that business strategies are intended to be ambitious yet feasible – which is why they’re often referred to as “moon shots.”
For example, the business strategy for an early stage startup might be to pursue this big yet unlikely goal because we know that once we succeed, it will provide a solid foundation for delivering much more achievable yet still valuable goals. What makes something a product strategy rather than a project strategy? A product strategy is a plan intended to guide the efforts of product teams over time. It is not a specific project or release that gets delivered.
For example, suppose we have a business strategy that says we want to expand into Europe, and we want to do this by building local language capabilities into our products.
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