A product strategy acid test

3 quick questions to see if your strategy development is on track

If you can answer these three questions clearly and concisely, you have the core of a product strategy:

(1) What customer problems do we need to solve, and in what order?

(2) Why?

(3) How will we know we’re solving them?

A few points about these to keep in mind:

• It's *customer* problems to solve, not business problems. A common pitfall is to express a business desire or aspiration, e.g. recurring revenue. Instead, what are the customer problem(s) that, when solved, would provide the business what it wants?

• There should be a coherent rationale for the problems to solve and sequencing. The format matters a little. The thinking matters a lot. The reasoning should be around differentiation and why customers will choose us instead of their alternatives. Differentiation is the hardest part and most product strategy challenge.

• The answer to "how will we know?" should ideally be observable changes in customer behavior. These are leading indicators product teams are better set up to affect, rather than lagging business impact measures like revenue, which result from many inputs.