TL;DR

Product strategy isn’t inherently self-aligning with business objectives nor is execution self-aligning with product strategy. Product managers should strive to be stewards of iterative, adaptive, and integrative strategy across the organization.

To most effectively ACTIVATE strategy across a product development team, use a [narrative] + [system of stories] approach to articulating and evangelizing strategy.

1. Use the Product Narrative Canvas to build a narrative container for your strategic stories

2. At the roadmap level, describe user-oriented, measurable outcomes (not features) against the needs/problems/desires of your target market; this collection of "characters" (users/market segments), "plots" (market needs/problems/desires), and "resolutions" (outcomes) is the system of interrelated and strategic stories that make up your product strategy

3. Organize outcomes by market needs-based themes

4. Associate outcomes to business objectives to validate alignment with business stakeholders: Sustainable Value, Growth, or Profit

5. Start with relative [Now > Next > Future] relative timing

6. Roadmaps can be considered charted views of OKRs; key results are the measurement benchmarks for outcomes

To most effectively OPERATIONALIZE strategy across product development cycles, commence continuous discovery while employing decision-making and prioritization frameworks such as the North Star Metric framework.

1. Guiding principles of discovery are:

   1. Discovery is continuous

   2. Discovery is a cross-functional sport

   3. Discovery requires first-hand inputs

   4. Discovery is guided by outcomes, not outputs

   5. Discovery seeks and prioritizes opportunities, not solutions

   6. Discovery tests assumptions, not specific solutions

   7. Discover with empathy and customer-centricity

   8. Discovery and delivery aren't separate responsibilities

   9. Your customers and stakeholders aren't able to tell you what to build

2. Use Opportunity-Solution Trees to organize continuous discovery activities

3. Problem statements should capture 1) your impressions of what’s wrong, 2) who this problem hurts, 3) why addressing this problem matters, and 4) how much better things will be if you can solve the problem

4. Problems should be right-sized (not too small to be meaningless and not too large to not be actionable) and insightful (framing should be meaningful and potent)

5. Simple prioritization frameworks (RICE, Kano, MoSCoW) are helpful for ordering backlogs or opportunity scoring

6. Use North Star Metric framework to guide higher-level decision making

7. NSM framework contextualizes product initiatives with your business model and product-market fit, and it is highly accessible to anyone in an organization

To most effectively OPTIMIZE across product development cycles, establish the right measurement and collaboration constructs to harness emergent “Product Truth” and harvest strategic insights

1. Complexity is defined by its unknowables and unbounded inputs/outputs (as opposed to complication like Ikea furniture)

2. Complexity is pervasive in almost all product development endeavors

3. Methodologies inspired by Agile principles emphasize responsiveness, the optimal mode of operation in the presence of complexity

4. Emergent “Product Truth” is the fuel that powers agile responsiveness and the ongoing optimization of product strategy

5. Harness emergent Product Truth through the following collaborative constructs:

   1. Agile foundations

   2. Predictability

   3. Risk

   4. Incrementality

   5. Measurement & experimentation

   6. Debt

6. Top-level product strategy should include affording product development teams the authority to define the "how" of delivering any outcome as well as the autonomy to self-optimize based on signals of emergent Product Truth

Product growth and measurement dimensions are: [Breadth, Depth, Frequency, and Efficiency]

Product discovery, risk, and debt dimensions are: [Value, Usability, Feasibility, and Viability]