Product Vision & Strategy by Amazon fmr Product Executive, Bhushan Shinkre

The "Purclation" Principle

A "top down" approach to building robust product strategy

Vision - your "Destination":

  • Aspirational

  • Achievable

  • Long - Term

  • Customer Focused

  • Business Aligned

  • Our vision is to offer highly reliable, scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of businesses in 190 countries around the world.

  • A vision statement is essentially your value prop statement - persona, value delivered (strategic pillars), through what (product).

  • Typically, 3-yr or 5-yr, and doesn’t change often. It takes time to craft a compelling vision.

Principles - Your "guided signposts":

  • Core values

  • Bar raiser

  • Guardrails

Principles help you say no to good ideas, so you can focus on truly great ones.

  • Leadership principles such as - "Customer Obsession", "Dive Deep", "Think Big" help raise the bar of product vision and strategic priorities.

  • Define them at product level such as caring about low-touch, time-sensitive functionality on your Mobile app, everything else is passable.

Strategic Pillars & Roadmap - Your "Journey"

  • Measurable

  • Prioritized

  • Achievable

  • Aligned

Strategy without Execution is Hallucination.

Strategy without Definition is Pure Blindness.

  • Great strategies are rooted in customer needs, business goals and market differentiation

  • They focus on foundational and growth outcomes, and should complement each other

  • Strategic plays and roadmaps should pivot for topics reasons. Ex: pandemic effects

  • Business cases should be well - articulated, ex: Lean Canvas > Amazon PR - FAQ. Prioritization frameworks include RICE & MoSCoW, but keep it simple and comprehensible.

Closing Thoughts

  • Do thorough customer, market and business due diligence while crafting your product vision & strategy. Apply 80:20 rule when it comes to confidence level of your data, qualitative or quantitative.

  • Define your product principles to focus on great ideas, do not settle with mediocre ones. Learn to say "no" to yourself and to your stakeholders.

  • Continuously align your vision, strategy & roadmap with executives and stakeholders, articulated using right business and prioritization frameworks.

  • Be ready to pivot your strategy as needed but keep your vision as your "North Star."

Bhushan Shinkre, Amazon fmr Product Executive