The CPO Series: Managing through periods of uncertainty - Strategy

Lisa Schneider and I have spent many hours discussing the CPO role, its key responsibilities and main challenges. Over the last 6 months or so, the context has frequently been around managing in tougher economic climates.

The output of those discussions is a series of posts that where we are excited to share our collective thinking on the topic. We will alternate publishing between our respective feeds and share accordingly. Please share any thoughts, comments or questions.

#productstrategy #productleadership #userfocus #customerfocus #economicslowdown

After a historic period of growth and investment, many technology leaders and executives are dealing with a new planning variable: Macro Economic Uncertainty. For many years, the CPO’s focus and attention has been against a stable economic backdrop. Relative stability enables greater risk taking, experimentation, and room to fail — but in times of uncertainty, leaders will not have that leeway.?

They’ll feel more pressure, more scrutiny, more reserving of cash, and greater demand for short-term results. That can play out as delays or cancellations of investment, a change in focus, less tolerance for experimentation, and shorter runway for results, along with hiring freezes or changes in staffing. If you haven’t led through a downturn before, it’s crucial to understand how your leadership style and attention needs to adjust with the change in circumstances.

C-Suite leaders and especially CPOs can navigate this period with principles that will hopefully not only allow the organization to survive a downturn, but provide a strengthened platform for growth in the future. This series on Leading Through Uncertainty covers four areas, following three key throughlines in each: #focus, #prioritization, and #communication. Below, we cover Strategic Planning, and subsequent articles will cover Leadership, Commercial and Finance, and User Focus.

Strategic Planning

Key stakeholders: C-Suite and Board

Strategic planning is often thought of as a big exercise, and much OKR advice is around stretch goals. But when times are tough, it’s actually important that goals and priorities are focused and realistic since there will likely be more appetite for certainty in results. What you know now, what will decisively move the needle in the short term, and most critically how much runway you have, are all key factors in thinking about strategy with stronger than ever constraints. These constraints will indubitably mean fewer projects — pet projects and innovation may have to be set aside for a double-down on immediate commercialization. When having to make and defend these decisions, work closely with the CFO to get alignment on impact and prioritization so you’re not advocating alone.?

Focus:

• Simply put: reduce your priority list. Doing more with less is a common hard time/hustle mantra that never works, and takes energy and concentration away from the core, critical efforts that will get your organization through. Your job as a leader is to define what those are, and backlog the rest.
• Shorten your timeframes and roadmaps. Rather than looking out 18-36 months, define the plan for the next 6-12 months. This is more in line with a period of uncertainty or even austerity, and makes it easier to adjust further out as you get more learnings or the situation evolves.

Prioritization:

• A strict prioritization of your new, narrower focus makes it crystal clear for your team, and to your CEO and board, what the priorities are and where we will focus our efforts. A few critical items done efficiently and well will shore up your position better than a lot of items in progress.
• If growth is slowing and there are no obvious new revenue driving initiatives, this might be an opportunity to address tech debt, or reduce COGS through automation.
• Hyper index on what can be done in these shorter time frames to show progress and provide tangible benefits to the business results.

Communication:?

• Be ruthless about communicating the new strategy and priorities, with context and empathy. Don’t tell people you’ll “try to” get something in if it’s unlikely to happen.
• Over communicate with your leadership team and board to show progress or be up front about roadblocks or changes in expectations. Anticipate questions and address those as early as possible. While this is always good advice, it’s especially critical when times are uncertain.
• Avoid talking about ‘Hustle’, ‘Being Scrappy,’ or ‘Business as Usual’. These are platitudes that do not resonate, don’t inspire, and don’t generate confidence. Acknowledge the realities and explain the rationale (and solicit feedback on!) the new strategies and focus that we expect to address these situations.

Next up: Leadership.