How to Coach a Product Team to Execute the Eight Core Elements of Product Strategy
“A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life.” — John Wooden
I still remember the day I met my college coach. As a freshman NCAA swimmer, I was excited and terrified for the first team meeting. Yet minutes in, the coach had calmed the team, taken command, and started setting the path forward. My excitement grew, and my trepidation faded.
Throughout the season, the coach continued to both guide and mentor. Ultimately I became a better swimmer and was privileged to make the NCAA division three championships. While I didn’t place, I had grown tremendously both in the pool and out. My speed, technique, and mentality improved along with my grit as I learned to balance the demands of practice, a challenging major, biochemistry, and social life. Without the support of my coach, my college career would have started very differently, and I wouldn’t be who I am today.
“Does coaching work? Yes. Good coaches provide a truly important service. They tell you the truth when no one else will.” — Jack Welch
Product strategists = coaches
You, as the product strategist, are the coach. The product strategy acts as the playbook for the team, taking them to victory.
Products without a product strategist are like athletes without a coach, wandering campus unable to find the gym, let alone execute a successful practice. As a product strategist, you are the coach for your athletes — err I mean product team, as they execute. Your job is to get them past difficult choices, lay out the winning strategy and help them achieve the vision.
Having progressed my career in product strategy and management, I’ll never forget my early assignments as part of a larger product team. From an analyst through junior and senior product roles, I always longed for a person like my college coach to help me from time to time. Despite the gap, I made the best decisions given limited context and guidance.
However, my work often felt disconnected from the bigger picture. I was swimming against the current endlessly without a plan to win. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was yearning for a strategy, a person to explain the bigger picture and to help me connect it to my work.
Not to knock the C-suite, they explained their vision well and attempted to coach and direct the organization. I was lucky to be paired with a divisional CFO in a management development program. However, it was like having a major league coach training an eight-year-old first-year little leaguer.
Product strategy = the plays to run
Once you accept your role as a coach, you need to think about your product strategy as the plays your product teams will run to win the game. The plan that takes the team with raw talent to disciplined star players. Looking at the product strategy through that lens will force you to build a clear, winning, and executable playbook.
Remember, bad plays = losing games.
Bad product strategies = losing in the market.
Typically the critical plays are outlined in a few areas of the product strategy. Read my article, the eight core elements of a winning product strategy, which includes:
- The vision, the north star, the market opportunity, and the user-centered value story provide the backdrop — information on the winning theme, the venue, the field, the team, and the players.
- How to win. These are the deliberate choices you must make to win — for example, your starting lineup, your formation, etc.
- Objectives and Key Results. These are the specific plays you will run and the expected outcomes you hope to achieve — advance on the field, position for scoring, score, etc.
- Assumptions, constraints, and dependencies (ACD) — What assumptions are you making going into the game (e.g., speed advantage), constraints (e.g., defense disadvantage), and dependencies (e.g., weather)? You need to know how external factors will impact your strategy, team, and playbook.
Building the playbook
For more on building the playbook, here are a few suggested posts:
- How to design a product north star that motivates the team to achieve greatness
- The first principles of successful product strategy
- The essential questions that lead to a great product strategy
“I apologize for such a long letter — I didn’t have time to write a short one.” — Mark Twain
Communicating the product strategy
If this seems simple, I assure you it’s not. A winning product strategy and playbook result from blood, sweat, tears, hard work, collaboration, iteration, and working tirelessly with users. It is also concise and to the point. Under thirty slides or ten written pages.
While you may start longer, edit it down to a clear, concise document that can be digested and understood in thirty minutes and tells a story. The best way to frame the product strategy and playbook is a pitch that tells a story and articulates why leadership should invest, and what plays you will run with the product teams to make it real.
Visualizing the End Game
Another critical point — while you need to provide the plays to run, it’s also essential to give the team the freedom to envision how they will execute the plays. Too much detail creates paralysis and destroys creative thinking. Just as a college football coach can’t tell you how many inches to run and then break left, a product strategist can’t tell the product team all the features needed and what code to write.
The team needs to visualize and execute based on the circumstances present. Remember that coaching does not equate to doing the work. It equates to enabling the work through an empowered team.
Closing the loop
Would you expect Luke Skywalker to succeed without Obi-wan Kenobi or Yoda? Would you expect a professional soccer team to win yearly without a coach? Then how can you expect your product to succeed without a coach and a winning playbook?
Product strategy is the critical link between what your company wants to achieve and how your product will meet that need. Don’t let your product wander the desert without water, a map, or a guide. We all need fewer dead products in the desert of failure.
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Special thanks to Tremis Skeete, Executive Editor at Product Coalition for the valuable input which contributed to the editing of this article.
