100 Product Strategies Nacho Bassino

Alignment is one of the hardest challenges of strategy. Conflictive goals, every department fighting for their priority, opposed world views and interpretations of how the future will unfold…

Luckily, Bruce McCarthy is an expert on the topic, and in this episode, he shares many tactics and tips on how to surface these conversations, use the right artifacts, and create alignment.


Resources


New Book: Aligned


ProductCulture.org


Follow Bruce on Linkedin / X

We all know Strategy is complex, cumbersome, and foggy. We strive to navigate and make strategic decisions in this environment, which usually leads to opinionated battles and stakeholder misalignment since we can all interpret the signals in different ways.

Remarkably, Dan Olsen, my guest in this episode, created simple tools and one-pagers that help you crystalize your thinking, find the opportunities that can truly make a difference, and have more meaningful conversations with stakeholders.

I’m amazed by how Dan brought complex situations down to their essence and explained how framing and structuring them can truly make these daunting challenges approachable and almost easy to resolve.

Important note: In a few moments, Dan shared a screen, so if you can watch while you listen, it could be helpful to get a visual reference (but it is not required to understand the concepts discussed).

You can find Dan at dan-olsen.com

Ready for some strategic wisdom? In this episode, I had the honor of delving into the depths of product strategy with Marty Cagan, a true luminary in the field. I asked the hardest questions and tried to explore topics beyond what you would normally find in Marty’s writing.

From the pitfalls of neglecting strategy to the necessity of ongoing adaptation, Marty's insights are a game-changer for product leaders.

We explored controversial topics, such as why strategy trumps discovery and the critical role of top-level input in shaping successful product strategies.

But that's not all—we also discuss the significance of understanding team scope, capabilities, and experience, the role of strategy in budget allocation, and the importance of seeking guidance from experienced mentors.

Every part of the episode has actionable advice, which Marty very eloquently shares.

Where to Find Marty’s Work:



svpg.com, where you can find the newsletter


Transformed is Marty’s newest book, and Empowered contains many topics we explored in the episode.

There are infinite ways to define strategy. Most involve finding a critical challenge and defining the big strokes of how to solve it.

This can be an intimidating task to any leader! Furthermore, if we spend the high effort involved in putting it together, and communicating it as our brilliant strategy for the next 12 months, chances are that the organization will not be super receptive to feedback, learning and iteration on this critical strategic bets.

This is a very complex and nuanced topic, but I had the fortune to speak with Jeff Gothelf, not only an expert in the topic, but someone who can articulate complex problems in simple ways.

We covered how Jeff defines a “lean” strategy, how connecting strategy to OKRs help you learn fast about your hypothesis, and how leaders should take a more humble (and smarter!) approach to explicitly calling out uncertainty and willingness to learn.

Where to find Jeff:


JeffGothelf.com, where you can find the newsletter


Linkedin


Jeff’s upcoming book, “Who does what by how much”

Strategy is messy. It’s happening simoulteaneously at different levels, with different lenses, different time horizons, among many other stakes at play.

My guest in this episode, John Cutler, has a remarkable ability to bridge the world of theories with what we actually face down the road when executing. Together, we unravel the intricacies of the 'messy middle,' that challenging space between lofty company aspirations and the day-to-day grind of teams.

The conversation was extremely valuable to me, because it brought actionable ideas to complex topics like:


helping team think bigger and wider,


what is important to define to have a solid strategy,


how to (or not to) align,



and many more topics.

We often talk about strategy diagnosis and insights as if they were something we go through in isolation when defining the direction of our product.

However, those insights come (or should come) from our discovery efforts. Unfortunately, this connection is often missing, and to be fair, it can be pretty messy.

That’s why I had a wonderful conversation with Teresa Torres, one of the top voices on product discovery, and we went deep into the hard questions of connecting these two worlds:


How involved should leaders be in Discovery?


How do we validate our strategic assumptions with users?


How do discovery at different levels interconnect?



and much more. Teresa shared multiple tips on tactics to overcome the typical pitfalls.


Where to Find Teresa’s Work


Product Talk - Hundreds of valuable articles and resources.


Product Talk Academy - All training options.


Continuous Discovery Habits book


To join the product leaders’ monthly sessions, email support@producttalk.org