I'd argue it's a symptom of Big Firm consulting and teaching strategy in a perfectionist's view. Got into hot water trying to adopt an 'iterative' approach with my slide building at work.
Turns out, perfectionism is the standard in these environments.
This strikes as not the right way to define the two groups. A little bit of it is simply in the labels you've used for the two groups—it seems from the descriptions, they'd be better called waterfall or top down vs agile. When they're worded this way, it's much more obvious where the conversation is going—and what the tradeoffs are between the two. To define the "strategy mindset" by a particular strategy seems off.
Strategies are multi-step. The idea of building the foundation of a house, testing with users, finding that they hate not having a roof, and scrapping everything is folly. Obviously the "MVP" includes a roof and testing before that is silly. Strategies are fractal—with shorter processes and larger ones. The points at which to test and get feedback are hopefully short and regular enough, but no you can't just test in the middle of them and blame the strategist when it fails.
I think you're mixing and matching what's being iterated. In one case you're iterating the vision and in the other the execution. This is a big problem in tech leadership imo. Iterating the vision became best practice. The ZIRP era has provided plenty of (iffy) positive feedback to behaving this way so it's not exactly wrong. The prevalent notion of assuming you can make a startup that can do anything and figuring out the anything later is a phenomenon. The vision-less startup, iterating and then checking, still needs to have a means of identifying when a cycle is successful; this is harder when the vision is the thing being iterated. You get companies looking for heads of product a year or two in, which seems regular now? That it's so common for founders who've already raised trying to find someone to tell them what to build is a little head scratching.
Most founders looking for a head of product two years in aren't looking for product vision from those hires, but how to manage an increasingly complex product roadmap, better prioritiziation and sequencing, and managing product managers, which a lot of founders have never done. I would say 1/10 of those roles are looking for product vision, and that's when the founders skew sales/go-to market types. This actually creates a lot of issues for incoming heads of product as they think they have more say in future product vision than they ever will.
To follow up, I think "Segment and Channel Expansion in Growth Teams" captures well what I find product teams/leaders struggle with. Commenting here as it presents a good example of how strategy and product mindsets might be one mindset—two sides of the same coin.
You note there that product teams have to advocate for the big picture because at certain stages of a strategy the metrics will look bad in isolation. Seeing the bigger picture:
- Presenting new opportunity and questioning whether the company is willing to do the work to validate and develop this new segment or channel fully.
- Coordinating with other teams to determine if the company is ready to dedicate the effort needed to find product-market fit with these new segments that may initially underperform.
- Being prepared to address downstream bottlenecks that emerge following a growth unlock.
- Advocating for the necessary structural adjustments across the company to realize the full potential of these opportunities.
These are the future steps that if not done will make having taken the first steps pointless. My experience is many product leaders/teams go wayward connecting the big picture and small cycles—sometimes it's skill, but often its because of a lack of conviction in the big picture (it is not uncommon that the picture really is weak, but the team felt compelled by timeline to have "something").
It's very possible to fail miserably with "do this whole thing and win," but as you're pointing out any strategy has to have some notion of "this whole thing". There's a disagree and commit to this. If it's "failing" when it's supposed to "fail", that's a green light not a red one. But when folks don't believe in the strategy (or the strategy-minded person), they have metrics ready in hand to make the case for changing course.
Yes, this makes for certain head of product dynamics at companies. Particularly as they sit between founders/vision and the prod-eng-design folks they're formally or informally responsible for.
Great insights, Casey! I love how you highlight the value of iterative cycles and feedback loops in software. It’s a crucial reminder that product success comes from constant learning and adapting.
Love this- and resonates with my experience with dedicated strategy teams. I met with our strategy team a couple years ago (they are now disbanded) and they practiced their pitch of this new product to me and asked "What would get you to invest?" And I said "Real users actually using it" My company is now doing something called "Rapid Prototype team" which is better but still not "real users actually using it" - would be curious of your thoughts on innovation for market expansion outside the core product?
Mhhh I learned strategy from Roger L. Martin and one key concept is that you gotta test your strategic possibilities before you commit. Very much design thinking.
I would be curious who these 'strategy people' are. Like, business school or what?
(I don't have a formal education like an MBA, just learned everything on the job, so I'm curious)
I'd argue it's a symptom of Big Firm consulting and teaching strategy in a perfectionist's view. Got into hot water trying to adopt an 'iterative' approach with my slide building at work.
Turns out, perfectionism is the standard in these environments.
This strikes as not the right way to define the two groups. A little bit of it is simply in the labels you've used for the two groups—it seems from the descriptions, they'd be better called waterfall or top down vs agile. When they're worded this way, it's much more obvious where the conversation is going—and what the tradeoffs are between the two. To define the "strategy mindset" by a particular strategy seems off.
Strategies are multi-step. The idea of building the foundation of a house, testing with users, finding that they hate not having a roof, and scrapping everything is folly. Obviously the "MVP" includes a roof and testing before that is silly. Strategies are fractal—with shorter processes and larger ones. The points at which to test and get feedback are hopefully short and regular enough, but no you can't just test in the middle of them and blame the strategist when it fails.
I think you're mixing and matching what's being iterated. In one case you're iterating the vision and in the other the execution. This is a big problem in tech leadership imo. Iterating the vision became best practice. The ZIRP era has provided plenty of (iffy) positive feedback to behaving this way so it's not exactly wrong. The prevalent notion of assuming you can make a startup that can do anything and figuring out the anything later is a phenomenon. The vision-less startup, iterating and then checking, still needs to have a means of identifying when a cycle is successful; this is harder when the vision is the thing being iterated. You get companies looking for heads of product a year or two in, which seems regular now? That it's so common for founders who've already raised trying to find someone to tell them what to build is a little head scratching.
Most founders looking for a head of product two years in aren't looking for product vision from those hires, but how to manage an increasingly complex product roadmap, better prioritiziation and sequencing, and managing product managers, which a lot of founders have never done. I would say 1/10 of those roles are looking for product vision, and that's when the founders skew sales/go-to market types. This actually creates a lot of issues for incoming heads of product as they think they have more say in future product vision than they ever will.
To follow up, I think "Segment and Channel Expansion in Growth Teams" captures well what I find product teams/leaders struggle with. Commenting here as it presents a good example of how strategy and product mindsets might be one mindset—two sides of the same coin.
You note there that product teams have to advocate for the big picture because at certain stages of a strategy the metrics will look bad in isolation. Seeing the bigger picture:
- Presenting new opportunity and questioning whether the company is willing to do the work to validate and develop this new segment or channel fully.
- Coordinating with other teams to determine if the company is ready to dedicate the effort needed to find product-market fit with these new segments that may initially underperform.
- Being prepared to address downstream bottlenecks that emerge following a growth unlock.
- Advocating for the necessary structural adjustments across the company to realize the full potential of these opportunities.
These are the future steps that if not done will make having taken the first steps pointless. My experience is many product leaders/teams go wayward connecting the big picture and small cycles—sometimes it's skill, but often its because of a lack of conviction in the big picture (it is not uncommon that the picture really is weak, but the team felt compelled by timeline to have "something").
It's very possible to fail miserably with "do this whole thing and win," but as you're pointing out any strategy has to have some notion of "this whole thing". There's a disagree and commit to this. If it's "failing" when it's supposed to "fail", that's a green light not a red one. But when folks don't believe in the strategy (or the strategy-minded person), they have metrics ready in hand to make the case for changing course.
Yes, this makes for certain head of product dynamics at companies. Particularly as they sit between founders/vision and the prod-eng-design folks they're formally or informally responsible for.
IMO, you always need to be strategic- but you always also need to be in the product mindset. They both can co-exist in an individual.
Great insights, Casey! I love how you highlight the value of iterative cycles and feedback loops in software. It’s a crucial reminder that product success comes from constant learning and adapting.
Love this- and resonates with my experience with dedicated strategy teams. I met with our strategy team a couple years ago (they are now disbanded) and they practiced their pitch of this new product to me and asked "What would get you to invest?" And I said "Real users actually using it" My company is now doing something called "Rapid Prototype team" which is better but still not "real users actually using it" - would be curious of your thoughts on innovation for market expansion outside the core product?
I wrote a bit more about this in a few different blogs:
https://caseyaccidental.substack.com/p/second-products
https://caseyaccidental.substack.com/p/is-my-second-product-failing
https://caseyaccidental.substack.com/p/finding-the-next-wave-of-growth-s
Mhhh I learned strategy from Roger L. Martin and one key concept is that you gotta test your strategic possibilities before you commit. Very much design thinking.
I would be curious who these 'strategy people' are. Like, business school or what?
(I don't have a formal education like an MBA, just learned everything on the job, so I'm curious)