Why use the Product Strategy Playbook?

Dean was feeling burned out.

A Project-Manager-turned Product Manager, he was going into his second year at a medium-sized, business-to-business (B2B) software-as-a-service (SaaS) company. He did everything a product person should do: researching the market, conducting customer interviews and listening to his stakeholders. He worked 60+ hours per week and thought that if he just worked harder, he’d be able to make his next product launch a success.

“Our process included almost no strategic planning”, Dean said. “The absence of a strategic framework led us to copy our competitors or just build what our CEO wanted. When we did launch something ‘original’, the market didn’t bite.” Dean also shared that his team often spent weeks exploring an idea that was ultimately vetoed by the Engineering team because it wasn’t feasible.

We met Dean during Product Faculty’s Advanced Product Management Masterclass in 2020. Product Faculty has helped thousands of Product Managers fast-track their careers by teaching them the tools, skills and frameworks used by the top 1% of Product Managers. In our first week of the 6-week Program we cover the Product Strategy module, during which we teach Product Managers how to apply the Product Strategy Framework.

A team using the Product Strategy Framework is able to assess how successful their product or major feature launch would be — before they actually launch. It’s a tool that can be used to gain alignment and drive a shared understanding among key stakeholders about your product strategy. The framework can also be applied retrospectively — as a diagnostic tool — to help determine the reason behind a failed product or feature.

This is the first time a comprehensive, end-to-end, one-page Strategic Framework has been developed specifically for Product professionals.

Dean learned the Product Strategy Framework in-class and used the weekly Office Hours to dive deep into the nuances of the framework to truly understand the gaps in his product strategy. He realized that there were critical questions that he did not know, he had to ask.

In this playbook, we will teach you about the Product Strategy Framework, describe how to apply it to your product and share the best practices of how to communicate it with your stakeholders.

As for Dean, he’s still using the skills and tools he learned during the Advanced Product Management MasterClass. His career has progressed; he got promoted to a Director of Product at his company and continues to drive more impact for his company and customers.

This is what we want for you.