Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. — George S. Patton
I’ve recently written about concrete steps to create a great product strategy, but…
a Strategy is truly great only if it is greatly executed.
While we can think of execution as “building the product”, there are crucial follow-up activities to be done after defining the strategy. Correctly doing them can immensely impact the ability of the organization to achieve the desired outcomes.
For that reason, I want to follow up with concrete tools to:
- Communicate the Strategy
- Go from Strategy to OKRs
- Measure how good the strategy is (and when to pivot)
Note: this article is standalone, but does build on top of the previous one, I strongly suggest taking a look at it.
1. Strategy Communication
One of the top reasons why strategy implementation fails is because it’s unknown or poorly understood by the teams who need to execute it!
Studies by McKinsey and HBR show that 95% of employees (including even managers) do not know the company’s strategy.
An unknown strategy is as bad, in terms of results, as a non-existing one.
So let’s see how to make your strategy communication effective and memorable.
The dreaded Strategy Document
The first piece of your communication plan is the artifact that contains the strategy.
In my latest article, I included a Product Strategy Templatethat can be used to compile all the information, tools, and processes used to form the strategy. I consider this document a critical piece of your strategy creation process, and it certainly needs to be read by the leadership team.
It is a long document, hard to digest for team members not fully involved in the creation process, so it becomes a poor tool for communication.
So to start your information delivery process, you need additional artifacts:
- The strategy deck — to present during meetings, with the highlights of the document and the decision process. It should cover the compiled information and diagnosis, the insights, the selected drivers, and why they were selected.
- The summary picture — you need one image that can summarize the entire concept to hang it in the walls and make it memorable. In the previous article, I presented tools like the Kernel and Drivers models, but use anything that serves this purpose.
Communication Sessions
With the new artifacts built, it is time to have several sessions to propagate the information. This step will be quite different, depending on the size of the organization. Consider this an introductory guide to be adapted to your context:
- CPO to Stakeholders (“first line”): this session includes the CEO and top-line executives and goes through the full strategy explanation. It should take between 60 and 90 minutes. VPs or Directors of Product can collaborate with their specific unit strategies.
- CPO to Product “Triad’s” Workshop: this meeting includes the trio Product Manager, Product Designer, and Tech Lead of all product teams. Likely, Directors of Product have already been discussing parts of the strategy with team members, but this is the moment to review the entire picture with more detail. The session can take up to half a day, and go in-depth with data and discussions. It should provide the teams with all the strategic context needed to kick-off further opportunities exploration, roadmap definitions, and goal setting.
- Complete product team: the leadership team is also in charge of propagating the information to the entire product organization. They should have several stages and repetitions:
- All-hands meeting: probably held by CPO and Heads as the other meetings. The level of detail can be similar to Stakeholder’s meeting.
- Per “unit” repetition: Directors of “units” should host similar unit-all-hands meetings. Product, IT, and UX leaders should provide more detail on how the strategy impact that particular unit.
- Per team: inside each team, the product manager should repeat the strategy to the team and allow for further questions and discussions.
- Specific product stakeholders: for specific stakeholders, the Heads of Products or PMs can deliver a more specific message.
The importance of repetition
These sessions are a lot of work and take a lot of time. In any case, repetition is crucial to install the information in everyone’s brain.
Feedback
In all meetings, feedback should be captured and used to improve the strategy, and it’s communication artifacts. I consider this input a critical part of the measure and pivot section, but at this point use this 18-questions template to collect opinions from all product team members and stakeholders. The form covers all the relevant aspects of the strategy definition, and it will give you early insights on what should be changed before rolling out. I recommend you also use it as a self-assessment prior to the sessions.
From Strategy to OKRs
I’ve been working (and struggling) with OKRs for several years, and I’ve found that with a properly created strategy, the process is quite easier.
When using the drivers model, setting OKRs is almost as simple as taking each driver as an objective. The driver key result can be tied to the goal as a 12-month aspiration, and Key Results inside the goal would be metrics that can be achieved within the 3-months time-frame (they can even represent expected results of an experiment to validate a new strategy).
If you are not using the drivers model, you still can easily “extract” your drivers from any other synthesis method.
I recently used the example “Increase mobile conversion through personalization” as strategy’s Kernel, and it can be easily translated to a Driver and an objective.
Note: one additional step between Strategy and OKRs can be the strategic roadmap. Having it has pros and cons, but in this case, it would make this step even easier.
Building on top of existing OKRs
Unless you are setting your strategy for the first time or making a major shift, the strategy will continue existing efforts, with changes of focus or positioning. It is also likely that existing OKRs would be considered and adapted for future quarters.
Measuring and Pivoting Strategy
… I ran out of ink! In a few days, I’ll be completing arguably the most important part of this series, with the critical feedback loops to measure, improve, and pivot your strategy. (Join me to be the first one to read it!).