What are the most effective evaluation methods for product strategy?

Falar sobre estratégia de produto, sem falar de estratégia de negócio, é completamente irreal. Para que uma estratégia de produto seja bem formatada, é necessário compreender as escolhas que a empresa faz. Produto é meio! Para isso, gosto de uma abordagem prática através da Cascata de Escolhas Inteligentes, de Roger Martin e A.G. Lafley, respondendo as cinco perguntas: 1) Qual a nossa ambi??o vencedora? 2) Onde vamos atuar? 3) Como vamos vencer? 4) Que competências devemos ter? 5) Quais sistemas de gest?o s?o necessários? Quando entendemos a estratégia da empresa, aí sim conseguimos desenvolver a estratégia de produto, escolhendo certo a dire??o do produto em prol da empresa.

From my own experience, aligning your product strategy with your vision is a fundamental step. I've found that involving cross-functional teams early on can bring diverse perspectives and ensure a comprehensive alignment. I make it a habit to revisit and refresh our product vision periodically, using customer feedback and market research as guideposts to validate its relevance. It's not just about supporting the vision but enhancing it by creating a strategy that maximizes its impact. Regularly monitoring and adjusting this alignment has been crucial in my journey to keep our products on the right track.

Every successful product manager I’ve spoken with has had a clear vision for the future state of their product. Oftentimes, there are many requests for new product features or capabilities. A clear vision will help ensure that any request that deviates from the end state will be lower in priority to work that actually brings your product closer to the long-term goal.

Pour vérifier si la stratégie est alignée avec la vision, il est important en amont de définir des KPI & valeurs de cette vision. De cette manière on peut utiliser des mappings (matrice 2x2) et positionner les principaux axes stratégiques et vérifier s'ils contribuent directement ou indirectement à l'établissement de la vision. Le mapping est un outil simple, utilisable via Miro qui est très visuel.

Evaluating product strategy effectively demands a multifaceted approach. Define and track KPIs aligned with goals, gather customer feedback, and conduct competitor analysis for market context. Utilize user analytics, A/B testing, and iterative prototyping to ensure strategic alignment and user satisfaction. Regularly assess strategic alignment with business objectives, evaluate scalability, and monitor regulatory compliance. Seek feedback from cross-functional teams and continuously monitor post-launch performance for adaptability. This approach ensures a comprehensive evaluation, allowing for informed decision-making and iterative refinement of product strategy.

In addition to defining and tracking Goals and OKRs of the product, it is of paramount importance to evaluate if those goals tie into the team goals and roll up into the organizations goals and strategy. For eg: the goals of a CDP or an email platform should roll up into marketing goals that in turn should roll up into company goals and strategy. There should be a periodic review to evaluate any disconnect and pivot if required.

Measure if the strategy aligns with specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound product goals. Use frameworks like OKR, SMART, or GIST to define objectives, track key results, prioritize ideas, plan steps, and execute tasks. Monitor progress, assess performance, and acknowledge successes through these frameworks.

Product goals aren't just aspirational targets – they're the fuel that propels your strategy forward. Measuring their achievement isn't just about checking boxes; it's about diagnosing strengths, identifying roadblocks, and ultimately, propelling your product to new heights. Think of your strategy as a carefully crafted map leading to a magnificent peak. Goal achievement is like checking your altitude meter along the way, ensuring you're on the right path and making steady progress. Frameworks like OKRs, SMART, and GIST become your compass, guiding your focus and celebrating milestones reached.

To assess product strategy, it's crucial to measure its impact on achieving specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound product goals. Utilizing frameworks like OKR, SMART, or GIST aids in setting objectives, tracking key results, prioritizing ideas, planning steps, and executing tasks. These frameworks act as guides, allowing you to monitor progress, evaluate performance, and celebrate successes. It's akin to navigating a roadmap—with clear goals and strategic frameworks, you stay on course, ensuring your product journey aligns with desired outcomes and milestones.

In a broader context, employing effective evaluation methods for product strategy necessitates a structured approach. Vision alignment stands out as a crucial criterion, ensuring that the product strategy aligns with the organization's overarching goals and vision. Evaluating goal achievement becomes essential, utilizing key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the strategy's success against predefined objectives. Customer satisfaction serves as a vital metric, reflecting the strategy's ability to meet user needs and expectations.

Customer satisfaction is not just a component of product strategy it is a fundamental driver of product success. When PM’s prioritize customer happiness it can create a resilient and thriving product strategy that aligns with market needs and fosters sustainable growth. Customer satisfaction also serves as a key indicator of the effectiveness of strategic decisions. A positive response indicates that the product strategy aligns with customer expectations, validating the chosen direction. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is one of the powerful metrics that provides insight into the strategies that are most effective in bringing and retaining customers and it can also be harnessed to reveal crucial product insights.

Evaluating customer satisfaction is a cornerstone of assessing product strategy effectiveness. In one of my projects, we implemented regular NPS surveys and closely monitored online reviews. This approach not only provided us with quantitative data on customer satisfaction levels but also revealed qualitative insights into what customers truly valued about our product. We discovered that certain features we thought were minor were actually key drivers of customer delight. This led to a strategic shift in our development priorities. Regularly checking in with your customers helps ensure your product strategy remains aligned with their evolving needs and expectations, which is crucial for long-term success.

Without first determining the problem your customer ( internal or external) has, what are you solving for? How can your customer be satisfied without you...the problem solver ( Product Manager) knowing that your focused on the right product? This of course has to be balanced with the understanding that what your customer wants may differ from what the research says the REAL problem is and this is where the more challenging phase of Product Management comes in, aligning the entire team, stakeholders / customers included.

There are a few strategies that have consistently delivered results: Net Promoter Score (NPS): A classic metric that remains a powerhouse. By asking "How likely are you to recommend our product to a friend?" you gain valuable insights into overall satisfaction and loyalty Customer Surveys: They provide a deeper understanding of customer preferences and pain points User Analytics: Understanding how customers interact with your product can uncover hidden patterns and opportunities Social Media Listening: This real-time data can be invaluable in addressing issues and showcasing your commitment to customer satisfaction. Remember, every product is unique, so it's important to combine multiple methods and tailor the approach for a holistic view.

Un exemple best-in-class de design pour récupérer la satisfaction client est la notation de Uber après une course. Ils ont résolu de mon point de vue, la problématique du NPS en demandant de justifier toute note en dessous de 5 étoiles. De cette manière, cela oblige le client à réellement donner de l'information sur ce qui pourrait être amélioré et dans certain cas, à lui faire mettre 5 étoiles directement si il est satisfait. Dans certaine culture, dont la France, on nous enseigne dès l'école que le 20/20 n'est pas possible ou exceptionnelle, on remarque donc en UX que les utilisateurs peuvent avoir tendance à mettre 4/5 alors qu'ils n'ont rien à redire à l'expérience client.

To validate product market fit, you should have a product with a clear value proposition and target users in the market with existing needs or pains that your product addresses. One approach you could use to understand how customers perceive your product is to ask "How would you feel if you could no longer use the product?" This question, recommended by Sean Ellis, has the purpose of understanding product market fit. If the answer is 40% or more of users expressing that they would be "very disappointed," it means that you've successfully achieved product market fit.

Market Fit Evaluation assess how well your product aligns with market needs and competition. Tools like Product-Market Fit Canvas, Lean Canvas, or Value Proposition Canvas aid in defining problem, solution, target market, channels, and metrics. Validate assumptions, test hypotheses, and iterate product through these tools to ensure alignment with market demands and needs.

Rien de mieux que de tester ! Aucun Canvas, ou méthode ne répondra mieux à la question que d'avoir une preuve sur son marché. Pour cela, on peut faire des scénarios sur plusieurs marchés & cibles. Pour chaque scénario, on fait une variation du prototype produit et on est prêt à aller tester sur le marché directement nos différentes propositions de valeur. On peut ainsi s'orienter en abandonnant celles qui ne répondent pas au marché et creuser celle qui est la plus pertinente.

The fourth checkpoint in evaluating product strategy is ensuring it aligns with the market and competitive landscape. Market fit gauges how well your product meets target market needs. Tools like Product-Market Fit Canvas or Lean Canvas help define key elements—problem, solution, value proposition, customer segments, channels, revenue streams, cost structure, and metrics. These tools validate assumptions, test hypotheses, and facilitate product iteration. It's akin to crafting a puzzle—ensuring each piece fits seamlessly into the larger market context for a successful strategy.

Avaliar o potencial de inova??o é além de identificar os gaps de mercado, conseguir também identificar usos n?o previstos do seu produto pelo comportamento do usuário, mudan?as culturais e rastreamento de tendências Ter e mente que em um mundo t?o dinamico estar atento a isso precisa ser uma rotina para se manter competitivo no mercado

Evaluate your product strategy's effectiveness by assessing its ability to drive innovation and differentiation. Innovation potential measures your product's capacity to offer unique, valuable solutions, creating a competitive edge. Techniques like the Kano Model, Blue Ocean Strategy, or Jobs-To-Be-Done Theory can unveil latent customer needs, shape new value curves, and explore untapped markets. This process generates fresh ideas, explores opportunities, and fosters disruptive products, ensuring your strategy aligns with evolving market demands. It's akin to exploring uncharted waters—discovering novel solutions that set your product apart and resonate with customers.

Given the pace of technology development and the geopolitical and economic climate we are living in, organizations are under tremendous pressure to constantly optimize resourcing and reevaluating their portfolio for their alignment with corporate strategy. This makes these Strategy reviews highly significant and in many cases could carry existential importance for the products or teams themselves. It is important for teams to re-evaluate the product strategy as frequently as necessary to align with the changing organizational priorities and corporate strategy. Like it or not, this is emerging to become one of the most critical functions of the product leadership teams.

A crucial aspect of product strategy is a periodic and systematic strategy review. This entails analyzing your strategy, assessing results, and pinpointing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Utilize frameworks like SWOT, PESTEL, or VRIO for an in-depth evaluation of internal and external factors, resource assessment, and strategic positioning. This review ensures strategy alignment, team cohesion, and effective communication. It's akin to recalibrating a compass—constantly assessing your strategy guarantees it stays on the right course, guiding your product toward success.

Critical for strategy reviews is that you have tangible data on hand to - 1. Review strategy execution and impact since the last review 2. Make any tweaks or adjustments to the strategy for next few months Many a times, the strategy review meeting itself is the start of discussing what data to pull and what to analyze. This should be done as prep work for the strategy review meeting, sent out as a pre read before the meeting so that the strategy review meeting is as effective as possible in assessing and redefining strategy.

I believe its a mix of all these perspectives that are required to be used when evaluating the performance of a product basis the traits it touches upon. The evaluation should be based on feedback loops, usage statistics, pre defined metrics, etc which also might evolve over a period of time which is a part of the product life cycle management.

In addition to the evaluation methods mentioned earlier, we can use feedback loop for effectively evaluating product strategy: To use a feedback loop, start by collecting diverse feedback from customers, internal teams, and market data. Analyze this feedback to identify common themes and actionable insights. Use these insights to make informed decisions about potential changes to the product strategy. Implement these changes and gather feedback on their impact. Iterate and refine the strategy based on this feedback, creating a culture of continuous improvement and data-informed decision-making. This approach ensures that the product strategy remains aligned with customer needs and market dynamics.

Measure, Learn, Pivot: Evaluating Your Product Strategy: 1. Vision Alignment: Are your goals aligned with your vision and values? Are they clear and achievable? 2. Goal Achievement: Track key targets like user growth, engagement, and revenue with relevant metrics and dashboards. 3. Customer Satisfaction: Collect user feedback through surveys, interviews, and research. Analyze data to identify areas for improvement. 4. Market Fit: Solve a real problem for your audience. Stay relevant by monitoring market trends, competitors, and customer sentiment. 5. Innovation Potential: Does your strategy ensure future resilience while fostering a culture of experimentation to explore fresh growth prospects?