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