About the Product Strategy Framework

In this chapter, you will learn:

1. The purpose of a Product Strategy Framework
2. The key pillars of the Product Strategy Framework
3. How you can apply the Product Strategy Framework to your product

What is the Product Strategy Framework?

Product Faculty’s Product Strategy Framework is a model that addresses where to start with the fundamental decisions about whether or not to develop a particular product.

Most Product Managers don’t know what “being more strategic” actually means in practice. They don't know what questions they need to ask, or how to tell if the product they're working on is strategically aligned and likely to be successful. This is where the Product Strategy Framework comes in.

While no model can guarantee success, they can help you see opportunities and issues with your product. As a model, the Product Strategy Framework will get you 90% of the way there.

The Framework is used to assess the end-to-end viability of a product. It's a universal framework, one that can be applied to any product for any company. It's a strategic tool used to perform a health check on the competitiveness of the product you're about to launch, or it can be used retrospectively as a diagnostic tool to help determine the reason behind the failure of a particular product.

What are the key pillars of the Product Strategy Framework?

In order for a product to be successful, Product Managers need to think through the ‘4 pillars’ of their product strategy. These pillars are factors that most impact the success of your new product launch. Without these “pillars”, your product strategy will have significant gaps and your product will inevitably fail to gain traction in the market.

These pillars are:

Bear in mind that not all Pillars of the framework are equally weighted. The Pillar that is most important is the Customer Pillar, followed by the Product Pillar. In Chapter 8, we delve in more deeply on how to assess your results.

After going through this framework, you'll be able to see whether or not your product will be successful post-launch.

For each of the four key pillars, there are a set of questions you need to ask yourself. The answers to those questions can then be rated on a traffic light system: Green is good, amber is neutral, and red means you have cause for concern.

Let’s dive into each pillar and uncover the key questions you should be asking before launching your product.