Strategic Planning Requires Strategic Thinking

Written by Steven Haines

I’ve written this article to summarize some ideas in my mini-book, Product Strategy and Roadmapping.? While the book is geared toward product managers, it’s a solid reference for anyone who aspires to be a strategic-thinking businessperson.? I hope you’ll find it valuable.?

Interested in buying the book? Get it on Amazon.

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I’ve long been involved in the " corporate " world as a manager, leader, facilitator, and consultant.? Working with my clients, conducting business research, and writing business books, I’ve been lucky to see things through various lenses.? For example, when I compare strategic planning practices in different organizations to some of what I see as effective methods, there are some significant gaps.

For any businessperson (senior executive, functional leader, or product manager), formulating and executing a solid strategy will always offer opportunities and present challenges. Today’s corporations require strategic-thinking businesspeople who have the requisite business acumen to gather customer and market insights, assess past and current business performance, and recalibrate resources to maintain or gain competitive advantage—all while influencing others who are needed to drive the business into the future – all, at the speed of the market, or slightly faster!

But strategic planning is hard when there’s so much to do. Not only that, but there are also fuzzy edges between the day-to-day operations required to operate the business or manage products and the goals and strategies that serve as the steering currents in turbulent markets.

I’ve become deeply concerned that strategic planning has lost its edge in many modern companies, especially at the product level. It seems like the time required, the data needed, and the requisite mindsets have faded into the background, colored by short-term thinking. When a product manager or divisional leader is reminded to hand in the spreadsheets or update the SWOT analysis, they rush to fill in the blanks to hand in the assignment.? I see too many instances where data is insufficient or outdated.? Not all companies suffer from this, but enough do, which is why I wrote the book. In this brief article, I want to share some thoughts and ideas that might help you think differently about strategy. ?

First, it’s essential to understand the purpose of strategy.? ?Consider this: all strategies have similar requirements. These include:

1. Focusing on gaining a competitive advantage or achieving a desired market position.
2. Realizing a vision or fulfilling a mission.
3. Setting up a plan of action that encompasses a future time frame.
4. Addressing an entire chain of events with actions that may be separated in space and time.
5. Considering alternatives by anticipating conditions that might emerge.
6. Being flexible and adaptable.?

With this in mind, take a look at the diagram below.

It’s a visual that portrays the product strategy formulation process. Taking this perspective will allow you to produce a meaningful data analysis to build a solid fact base on which to consider future options.

The model helps us ask and answer some questions that include:

1. Where have we been and where are we now? ?Here, we are evaluating the product’s business to the current time. We’re assessing customers, competitors, and the overall state of the market. We’re also examining financial and other business contributions that produced explicit outcomes.
2. How do we assimilate all of the data?? Techniques like SWOT analysis allow us to consolidate our data and arrive at insights that open the door to new options and opportunities.
3. What’s the envisioned future path?? Using our data, we can paint portraits of a future for our product, the goals that can be attained, and the ultimate steps we can take to achieve those goals.

As you may be able to surmise, these efforts require data. A lot of data, and data is the heart of any business or product strategy. However, data isn’t neat and tidy; it’s disorganized and messy. It’s vital to ensure that data (operational, customer, competitive, financial, digital, etc.) can be organized and categorized adequately to understand connections and associations.? Effective business and product strategists are masters of data management and manipulation, creating order from chaos!

The synthesis of data requires strategic thinking, which is a vital skill. While it’s important to examine data in an orderly way, markets are not orderly, competitors do unexpected things, and economies act unpredictably. In sports, the path to the goal line isn’t straight, as team leaders think their way forward. This is why it’s essential to see the difference between the strategy formulation process and strategic thinking. When you can more easily capture what you learn from data, observations, experiences, and insights and translate those into a vision and direction that makes sense for the business, you’re on a more realistic path to the future.

While you may imagine many future opportunities, they should be organized into logical groups that reflect your company’s strategic priorities.? Your perspectives may be more easily shaped when you understand your company’s strategic priorities. For example, executives may want to direct funds to new products, enhancements, or other areas. To identify relevant opportunities, you must ensure they align with what the senior executives deem essential. As opportunities are analyzed, they can be prioritized based on strategic importance, value to intended customers, the ability to achieve competitive advantage, etc.? Further, assessing resources required and future returns can help put these into perspective.? The main idea is to screen out opportunities that don’t make sense and consider more carefully what can be done to help the company achieve its strategic intent.

Lastly, if these opportunities translate effectively into investible initiatives, there’s a need to ensure that they can be effectively integrated into the company's operating model.? Often, initiatives are agreed upon, but resources aren’t made available, and functional support isn’t present.? This creates a barrier to success.

Therefore, it’s vital for anyone involved in the strategy formulation process to think of all the interconnected elements of the company, product, market, etc., to ensure that all resources can coalesce around what’s best for the business to achieve competitive advantage.

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