Product Management: Foundations to Practice · Product Strategy and Positioning
Product Strategy vs Tactics
A roadmap full of features is not a strategy. This chapter draws a hard line between the two and explains why saying no is as important to strategy as saying yes.
Strategy defines the approach a team will take to achieve its vision: which customer segments to prioritize, which problems to solve first, and, just as importantly, which to explicitly defer. Tactics are the specific actions and features executed in service of that strategy. A useful mental model: strategy answers 'where are we playing and how are we trying to win,' tactics answer 'what specifically are we doing this sprint.'
Key Takeaways
- Strategy answers where to play and how to win; tactics are the specific actions taken in service of that answer.
- A feature-list roadmap is not a strategy unless its ordering can be explained by a stated segment and problem priority.
- Effective strategy requires explicitly declining good ideas that fall outside the chosen direction.
- Naming what a team has decided not to pursue, and why, prevents constant re-litigation of deprioritized requests.