A core part of working in product, of course, is creating a product vision and strategy. Surprisingly, this isn’t always the most urgent thing — when I’ve been lucky enough to work on an extremely fast-growing product with a small team, sometimes what we needed most was just to keep up with users’ demands.
I am happy to report that is also how I operate when it comes to define strategy.
Question: how can I teach the PM on my team think this way even if some of them are not at the level defining strategy yet?
As now I looking back how I evolve in the past 8 years as PM and now a leader, product management starts with the mindset; with the right mindset, it will organically inform the right approach corresponding to the context, be it gathering input from stakeholders, consulting core development team or interviewing end users.
Reminder not to listen to your customer base entirely.
There is this quote by Steve jobs that states "Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page."
I happen to be working on something like this right now so there are some useful reminders here about how I can improve my approach
I have read multiple write ups on how to write product vision and this is one among the best, thanks Ami for the same.
Thank you. Insightful....
I am happy to report that is also how I operate when it comes to define strategy.
Question: how can I teach the PM on my team think this way even if some of them are not at the level defining strategy yet?
As now I looking back how I evolve in the past 8 years as PM and now a leader, product management starts with the mindset; with the right mindset, it will organically inform the right approach corresponding to the context, be it gathering input from stakeholders, consulting core development team or interviewing end users.
Thanks
I agree the vision is Step 1, and subsequent steps are continuously reconciling with said vision, once everyone is able to articulate it: https://open.substack.com/pub/paninid/p/attn-product-leadership-criteria?r=4hxgy&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Reminder not to listen to your customer base entirely.
There is this quote by Steve jobs that states "Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page."