How to Build an Awesome Product Strategy
(even if it's not your job!)
Learn the 4 steps to create a great product strategy to solve the right problems for your business and its customers!
4. “An informed, intentional approach
for a product or service driven by
both customer needs/behavior and
the goals that will maximize your
success as an organization.”
@zacknaylor@Aureliuslab
8. As a heads up…
Aurelius
aureliuslab.com
This entire presentation is a small part taken from our
free product strategy mini course, brought to you by…
9. Free product strategy email
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Sign Up For the Mini-Course Now
(there’s way more content and case studies in the course!)
https://www.aureliuslab.com/free-product-strategy-mini-course
11. GOALS
Define what we are trying to accomplish, how it
will affect the experience and what should
happen as a result of this project or effort.
12. “Goals should convey our intentions
in a way that explains the expected
benefit to both our company and our
customers”
@zacknaylor@Aureliuslab
13. statements to improve a certain metric in a vacuum
profitability targets
prescriptive of a solution or action
GOOD PRODUCT/UX STRATEGY GOALS ARE NOT…
14. EXAMPLES OF GOOD PRODUCT STRATEGY GOALS
“Improve our new customer on-boarding process”
“Provide more meaningful content for our first time visitors”
“Deliver deeper value to product managers with our add on mobile app”
15. “Effective strategic goals provide
definition for what good design or
product decisions are”
@zacknaylor@Aureliuslab
16. DEFINING GOALS
An effective strategic goal for your product/experience should have…
Statement of what we’re trying to accomplish
Expected impact to the product/experience
Success indicators
18. USER RESEARCH
Why user research is absolutely critical…
Identify customer needs and behavior
Define what problems exist and more importantly why
It’s the way we learn how to meet our strategic goals
19. “In a startup no facts exist inside the
building, only opinions.”
@zacknaylor@Aureliuslab
Steve Blank - The Four Steps to the Epiphany
20. DOING THE RIGHT RESEARCH FOR YOU
Better enable designers and product managers the ability to
communicate designs, features and product recommendations
Step 1:
Review your goal(s)…
21. DOING THE RIGHT RESEARCH FOR YOU
Better enable designers and product managers the ability to
communicate designs, features and product recommendations
Step 2:
Form research questions…
22. DOING THE RIGHT RESEARCH FOR YOU
current tools
Step 3:
Create themes and/or categories to collect notes…
processcommunication challenges
designers product managers
23. CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH
Be relatively organized and prepared
Take notes about EVERYTHING
Follow your themes and categories to ensure you’re
collecting relevant notes and data to your goals
24. CREATING INSIGHTS FROM RESEARCH NOTES
Applying meaning to raw research data
Raw Data + Context = Insight
25. CREATING INSIGHTS FROM RESEARCH NOTES
Creating insights beyond raw data is absolutely critical because…
We need to communicate what we learned from
customers about how to meet our goal(s)
Decision-making from singular or raw data points is dangerous
Meaning is worth more than fact
26. Raw Data
tools
process
People struggle to show their
teams why a design decision/
recommendation is best
because they use separate tools
for tracking research and actual
product/project actions
Research notes about…
+ Context = Insight
Understanding of “why”
we saw/heard what you did
29. “You are not entitled to your opinion.
You are entitled to your informed
opinion. No one is entitled to be
ignorant.”
@zacknaylor@Aureliuslab
Harlan Ellison
34. METRICS
Choose metrics that tie back to our goal
and its success indicators that will
measure the success of each decision.
35. METRICS
Example Metrics:
GOAL
NPS
Total time on site/page
Sign Up Count
Better enable designers and product managers the ability to
communicate designs, features and product recommendations
Success Indicators:
Which should help us: Improve Adoption and Customer Retention
More people signing up for the product
Follow up Surveys/Usability Testing