A product strategy is a high-level plan that helps you realise your product vision. It defines the product, who it is for, why people would use it rather than some other product, and the benefits it provides to users, customers, and the producer.
Creating a product strategy involves making strategic decisions about the product’s features, functionality, pricing and marketing to maximise its value to customers and the producing organisation.
The following elements may combine to comprise a strategy:
- Product Vision: What is the product’s long-term purpose?
- Product Strategy: What are the product’s needs, features and goals?
- Product Roadmap: What is the plan over the coming months? Outline the Product Goal and forecasted features to be developed.
- Product Backlog: What are the detailed needs and requirements to be fulfilled?
The product strategy sits between the product vision and the product roadmap. It shows how you intend to fulfil the vision and provides the direction and justification to allow the details in the roadmap to be defined.
Whilst a product strategy is not explicitly required in Scrum, operating without one makes the Product Owner’s job much more complicated and makes it less likely that a coherent and valuable product will be created
A product strategy can be used to:
- Define and explain how your product creates value.
- Ensure you have appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure value.
- Decide what should and should not be in the Product Backlog.
- Decide the order of the work in the Product Backlog.
- Create a realistic product roadmap to set expectations for stakeholders.
A product strategy is not created once and then fixed. As we develop and deliver a product, we will learn more about our customers, the marketplace, our competition, technology and a range of other factors, which may lead us to change our strategy. Sometimes known as pivoting, this is expected to happen in complex environments where the least is known at the beginning when we are first creating a strategy.
As new technologies appear, competitors offer new products or improve existing ones. As your users change, your strategy has to change to successfully guide the development of the product to maximise its value. You should regularly review your product strategy to ensure it is fit for purpose and adapt it where it is not.
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