Aspiring Product Leader

Product Director / Director Of Product Management

VP Of Product Management

Chief Product Officer / CPO

A product strategy is about using Blue Ocean Strategy to differentiate from competitors

A product strategy is a roadmap that outlines what features to build

A product strategy is a set of ambitious goals and KPIs to aim for

A product strategy defines how you’ll achieve your vision by aligning user problems, market context, and company direction

Company strategy sets the ‘why’ and ‘where,’ while product strategy defines the ‘how’—how the product will help achieve the company's goals

They are independent. A product strategy focuses on features and user needs, while company strategy deals with revenue and business expansion

Product strategy is a roadmap of what the product team will deliver to meet business targets

Company and product strategy are the same thing—aligned teams use one unified strategy document

Email the strategy doc and ask teams to review it before the next sprint planning

Host a quarterly strategy alignment session with product and sales teams to walk through the strategy

Frame the strategy through real problems, align it to business outcomes, and bring it to life through examples in team rituals and decisions

Include the strategy slide at the end of your roadmap review, so teams see it in context

Outputs are features you ship; outcomes are the design improvements that result from them

Outputs are product team goals; outcomes are company goals

Outputs are the things you build; outcomes are the measurable changes in customer or business behavior

Outputs are part of agile delivery; outcomes are handled by marketing and sales

Check if it was delivered on time and without bugs

Measure adoption rates and see if users are engaging with the feature

Compare usage to the business objectives set before launch—did it improve retention, revenue, or other key outcomes?

Ask internal stakeholders for feedback and collect user quotes for the next product review

We analyze the full user and business journey—tracking awareness, demand, conversion, activation, retention, and churn—to link product work to commercial impact

We define OKRs or KPI trees for each initiative and review them quarterly

We track product adoption metrics for new features and monitor usage of core workflows

We collect user feedback post-launch and evaluate customer satisfaction trends

By regularly benchmarking competitors and ensuring feature parity, while seeking ways to differentiate the product

By uncovering unmet or underserved needs—even if it requires rethinking core assumptions or exploring adjacent use cases

By segmenting the current customer base to upsell premium features and drive expansion revenue

By improving onboarding and optimizing conversion to make the most of existing acquisition channels

Correct. Strategic product leadership involves connecting external signals (e.g., trends, disruptions, regulation) with internal capabilities to find leverage and direction

Use analyst reports and competitor comparisons to benchmark your product and define gaps

Stay close to users and iterate quickly based on their feedback

Prioritize features requested by top customers to stay competitive in key verticals

Match it quickly to avoid churn or being seen as behind

Evaluate the feature through the lens of your vision, strategy, and unique positioning before deciding whether to respond

Survey users to confirm demand, then A/B test a simplified version before building fully

Escalate to sales and customer success so they can reassure customers while the product team works on a response

Introduce a prioritization framework like RICE to structure decisions and assign opportunity scores

Investigate market needs and personas, estimate the total addressable market (TAM), and define a realistic serviceable market you could target

Research potential users by exploring their industries via LinkedIn or social media to approximate market size

Analyze the customer problem, identify affected personas, then compare your operations’ capacity to the market size to calculate the opportunity you can realistically target

Understanding company goals, the market landscape, and customer needs to define how the product will create and capture value

Listing all potential customer problems and choosing those that align with the team’s strengths

Creating a roadmap of features that align with executive expectations and timelines

Identifying the team’s biggest technical and operational challenges and removing blockers before setting direction

The CEO or executive team—they own company strategy, so product strategy is their job too

The product manager—they are the mini-CEO of the product and should independently define strategy

The product leader, in partnership with leadership, product team, and go-to-market—product leads the process, but alignment is key

The product team collectively, as strategy needs to be co-created across functions to succeed

It should focus primarily on delivering a list of features in a timely manner to satisfy stakeholders’ requests

It should communicate clear business outcomes and customer value, providing a vision of the product’s evolution and the strategy behind each initiative

It should prioritize the execution of high-visibility projects to ensure maximum exposure within the company

It should be flexible and subject to changes to accommodate shifting priorities from leadership or to respond to major market opportunities, such as large sales deals

Focus mostly on short-term initiatives to deliver immediate wins and show quick results to stakeholders

Prioritize long-term, high-impact initiatives, even if it means neglecting short-term needs or immediate customer pain points

Allocate resources equally between short-term and long-term initiatives, ensuring neither is neglected

Align the product portfolio based on strategic priorities, balancing short-term needs with long-term investments, and adjusting according to market conditions and business goals

Use a framework like RICE or MoSCoW to score initiatives based on their business impact and user value, and prioritize based on the highest scores

Focus primarily on user feedback and pain points, ensuring the most urgent needs are addressed first, regardless of business goals

Evaluate each initiative against business objectives, user needs, and the product strategy, ensuring that it delivers value and aligns with the broader vision before prioritizing. Input from other teams can help shape this decision

Prioritize based on the product team’s expertise, trusting that the product experts know what will deliver both business and user value best

I ensure that teams have full autonomy to prioritize what they believe is important, as long as it aligns with the broad vision of the company

I define quarterly and monthly milestones, ensuring teams focus on high-priority features, breaking down larger opportunities into phased deliverables while also aligning with go-to-market strategy

I ask the teams to make prioritization decisions based on market trends and sales demand alone, then instruct teams to deliver based on these insights without the need for a phased approach

I ask the teams to create a fixed roadmap for the next quarter, so that there are no changes and ensure all teams execute exactly as planned without adjusting based on changing customer feedback or market conditions

We should prioritize a problem when it’s brought to the team, as long as it’s tied to a business goal

Discovery, when needed, should be used to validate the problem, ensuring it’s worth solving and aligns with company strategy before we prioritize it

We need to do discovery for every opportunity — it’s a key part of understanding product management

We prioritize problems based on their perceived size in terms of revenue or sales, disregarding discovery insights

Product teams should build solutions based on internal assumptions and then test them with customers later

Engaging customers early and regularly throughout discovery helps us understand the problem and test prototypes to ensure we’re solving the right issue

We should only engage customers once the product is near completion to gather final feedback before launch

Every solution we build, we discuss thoroughly with customers to create the perfect solution for them

Business impact analysis should be done only after the prioritization process, as it’s irrelevant to early discovery

Business impact analysis should be part of discovery, evaluating factors like TAM and strategic fit to ensure we prioritize high-impact opportunities

Business impact can be measured by building a small prototype, launching it, and tracking traction

Business impact analysis is unnecessary at this stage; we should prioritize based on user feedback, and business impact will follow

Assign every team to work on multiple high-priority initiatives in parallel to avoid delaying anything important

Prioritize based on what is easiest to implement, so we can get more things out quickly

Let teams pick what they want to work on based on interest and available time, ensuring high motivation and productivity

Evaluate each initiative's impact, strategic alignment, and required effort, then allocate resources based on expected value and trade-offs

Prioritize based only on potential value and customer demand. If an idea seems big enough, we move forward without overcomplicating with risk analysis

Evaluate risk as part of our decision-making, considering technical, market, and execution risks, and we adjust our investment level based on the degree of uncertainty

Risk is managed at the team level. As a product leader, my job is to set direction and let teams handle execution risks as they arise

Avoid prioritizing any initiative with significant risk or uncertainty until it’s fully validated through a live product or customer commitments

Prioritization should focus on landing key sales deals, even if they fall outside of the strategic roadmap — it’s critical to be flexible and accommodate big revenue opportunities

Should focus strictly on strategic alignment; if stakeholders don’t agree, we move forward regardless

Stakeholder alignment should be built by reviewing the strategy together and ensuring prioritization decisions reflect shared business goals

Stakeholders don’t need to be involved in prioritization decisions; that’s the product team’s job

We should always prioritize low-effort, high-value features to maximize delivery speed and ROI

Product teams should fully own this decision—it's their responsibility to balance value and effort as they see fit

We should focus only on what the team is confident they can deliver quickly, even if the value isn’t clear yet

We should weigh value against effort and complexity, but be willing to invest in high-effort opportunities when they align with long-term strategic goals

Once a strategic plan is defined, it should remain fixed to ensure consistent execution and avoid confusion

We should change plans frequently based on new feedback, even if it causes some delivery disruption

Adaptability is important, but it should be limited to delivery-level decisions, not strategy

Strategic plans should be flexible, allowing for adjustments based on new insights, discovery findings, or shifts in business context

The trio allows the product manager to delegate work efficiently to design and engineering

The trio makes it easier to collect input, but final decisions should always rest solely with the PM

The trio ensures that solutions are desirable, feasible, and viable by integrating perspectives early in the process

Trio collaboration is mainly useful during delivery, once the problem has already been defined

Stakeholders should only be involved after launch, when it’s time to support the go-to-market efforts

Engaging stakeholders early ensures alignment on messaging and maximizes buy-in for go-to-market execution

Stakeholders can be brought in closer to the end of development when the product is nearly ready and easier to communicate

Only customer-facing teams need to be consulted, as they bring in the voice of the customer

To ensure the product is developed quickly, and iterate fast

To align on customer needs, technical feasibility, business goals, and go-to-market efforts like promotion, campaigns, and sales enablement, enabling delivery of impactful products

To help go-to-market teams coordinate their own tasks effectively

So that each team can focus solely on their area without worrying about others

Focusing on achieving measurable business outcomes and user impact rather than just shipping features

Delivering the product on time, on budget, and meeting all feature requirements

Shipping as many features as possible to satisfy all stakeholder requests

Following the project plan exactly as defined at the start without deviation

To ensure everyone knows who is responsible for what, reducing confusion and preventing duplicated efforts

So everyone is accountable for their individual tasks, which helps avoid shared responsibility

To make sure roles don’t overlap and team members can work independently without interference

So teams can focus on their own work without needing constant communication or alignment

We only involve support and sales teams after a product is released, so their feedback focuses on improving future iterations

Feedback from customer success is mainly useful for upselling opportunities, not for product discovery or delivery decisions

Gathering feedback from multiple functions can lead to conflicting priorities, so it’s best to limit feedback sources to avoid confusion

Feedback should be collected continuously from all customer-facing teams to uncover real user problems and inform product decisions across discovery and delivery

It reduces the need for documentation, as updates can be shared ad hoc in conversations

It ensures alignment across functions, uncovers blockers early, and creates shared ownership of outcomes

It gives leaders more visibility into the team’s activity and helps them provide feedback more frequently

It allows stakeholders to steer the product direction regularly, even if priorities shift frequently

Choose the team with the most customer revenue attached and follow their lead

It’s great to get input from other teams, but prioritization is ultimately up to product management

Facilitate a shared discussion focused on strategic goals, and weigh trade-offs based on impact and urgency

Avoid involving both teams in the same prioritization cycle to minimize conflict

Delay work until all dependent teams are ready, to avoid coordination issues

Create a master dependency list and review it monthly with team leads

Push dependencies to later phases so each team can first focus on their part

Break work into smaller pieces that reduce coupling and allow teams to move independently where possible

The roadmap is high-level guidance; day-to-day work should be reactive based on the team’s immediate learnings

Align quarterly goals (like OKRs) with roadmap themes, and adjust sprint work to reflect progress and learning

Define a fixed plan quarterly and stick to it to avoid confusion from mid-cycle changes

Each team should define their own planning cadence; coordination creates unnecessary overhead

Define clear strategic context, then let teams decide how to solve problems within that frame

Let teams define their own goals and direction — autonomy is more important than consistency

Ensure all teams follow the same processes so everyone stays aligned

Limit autonomy during execution phases to ensure plans are followed as defined

Track velocity and burndown charts to ensure teams are shipping features fast

Measure the number of tickets completed and how often teams meet their deadlines

Use business and user outcomes (e.g., adoption, satisfaction, revenue impact) to assess whether execution creates real value

Set OKRs for the product team — if we hit them, we know we’re doing well

HR or People teams — they own development processes

The product team themselves — growth is a personal responsibility

The product leader — they are accountable for creating an environment where growth happens

External mentors or courses — real coaching happens outside the day-to-day

So people don’t overlap in their work and everything gets done once

So you can plan hiring based on gaps in the team

It’s mostly important for junior teams, experienced ones figure it out on their own

Because unclear roles create confusion, slow decisions, and undermine accountability

Use feedback, 1:1s, and observation to identify gaps — then co-create development plans

Restructure the team and reassign responsibilities to cover weaknesses

Call them out early and assign training immediately

Hire senior people to avoid skill gaps altogether

Define team values once and remind everyone of them when needed

Let the team culture emerge naturally from whoever joins

Hire only based on skills — values and working style will adjust over time

Model desired behaviors, reinforce them consistently, and involve the team in shaping culture

Micromanaging is being involved, leading by example means staying out of the way

Micromanaging is about telling, leading by example is about showing and empowering

Leading by example means doing the work yourself to show how it’s done

Micromanagement is only a problem when deadlines are tight

Status updates and checking on project timelines

A space for performance reviews and escalating problems

To build trust, give feedback, understand blockers, and support growth

To go over task assignments and ensure accountability

People are friendly and get along well

Team members speak up, share concerns, and admit mistakes without fear

We have a mentality of always challenging decisions to make sure we’re being critical

Safety comes from comforting people when they’re down or stressed

Make it timely, specific, and focused on behaviors and impact

Deliver it immediately and directly so the person doesn’t forget

Use formal performance reviews so people take it seriously

Only give feedback when there’s a real problem to solve

Give autonomy and ownership to the product trio

Review every decision the team makes to ensure it aligns with goals

Set clear goals and guardrails, then support the team to deliver

Give autonomy only after the team proves they can be trusted

Let the team resolve it themselves — leaders shouldn’t interfere

Avoid conflict by ensuring clear rules and boundaries

Address conflict privately so others don’t get involved

Create a safe space to surface and resolve tensions constructively

Celebrate the highest performers based on delivery speed

Recognize and reward behaviors that reflect values and drive impact

Tie rewards to hitting goals — everything else is just noise

Let people know privately when they do a good job to avoid jealousy

Pick the most popular framework and implement it as-is for consistency

Customize frameworks to fit the team’s context and goals, adapting as needed

Avoid frameworks; they add unnecessary bureaucracy

Change frameworks frequently to find the perfect one

Frameworks are fixed methods; principles are flexible guidelines

Principles are only for executives; frameworks are for teams

You must strictly follow frameworks to succeed

Principles are vague, so frameworks are more useful

Keep all ceremonies because consistency helps teams perform

Teams decide what ceremonies they need to have

Cut down the number of ceremonies to avoid overload

Evaluate if ceremonies drive clear outcomes and drop those that don’t

Replace meetings with more detailed documentation

Empower teams to decline unnecessary meetings and suggest alternatives

Limit meetings to 30 minutes, regardless of topic

Schedule meetings during core hours only, to batch interruptions

Evaluate if existing tools meet needs before adding new ones

Add specialized tools for every function to optimize each team

Let teams choose their tools freely for autonomy

Leadership should decide which tools teams use to ensure standardization

Mandate one tool and process for the entire org to reduce complexity

Leave all decisions to teams to maximize ownership

Avoid setting any standards so teams learn through trial and error

Define core tools and processes in collaboration with teams, while allowing flexibility within clear boundaries

Senior teams can define and evolve their own processes with alignment

Process complexity should be the same for all teams for fairness

Junior teams need stricter, more prescriptive processes

Processes are always different between senior and junior teams

Following processes strictly will lead to success

Focus on KPIs to measure the success of processes

Define KPIs for the processes so teams can track their performance

Regularly review if processes drive the desired business outcomes

Formalize and document all processes before scaling

Work with the team to iterate processes as complexity grows and feedback emerges

Let teams organically redefine their own processes as they grow

Bring in an external consultant to set up processes for scaling

Allow teams to maintain their own separate tools and docs for flexibility

Use one centralized, accessible platform for key docs and roadmaps

Update documentation only when major milestones are hit

Limit access to documents to avoid information overload

Processes that aren’t documented properly

When processes are too minimal and lack structure

Accumulated outdated or inefficient processes that slow teams down

Processes designed by junior team members

Treat operations as a support function that reacts to team needs

Embed operations early in product planning to anticipate bottlenecks

Separate operations entirely from product teams for clarity

Focus operations mainly on tooling and automation

Share the strategy in a company-wide presentation and leave it documented

Break down the strategy into tailored messages for different teams and reinforce it regularly

Trust managers to cascade the strategy to their teams

Share strategy and make it visible in dashboards and OKRs

Lead with market opportunity, tie to company goals, and show the upside and tradeoffs, supported by a rough high-level plan

Share product roadmap highlights to show what's coming

Lead with market opportunity, tie it to company goals, and build excitement around the initiative

Present the initiative and ask for validation or suggestions

Start building with current resources and ask for more if the idea shows traction

Ask each function to provide resources for the initiative based on their own capacity

Estimate scope, align across functions early, and plan for tradeoffs together

Focus only on product and tech resourcing — other functions will catch up

Push for what’s best for the product — great products lead to company success

Balance product impact with company priorities, even if it means short-term product compromises

Escalate these decisions to leadership and decide as a team

Focus on product; other leaders will handle the rest — ultimately, the CEO decides

Support business design if asked, but leave ownership to commercial or strategy teams

Launch first — if it works, we can fix the business model later

Get inspired by models that work in similar companies and focus on execution

Take an active role — product and business design are deeply intertwined

Your product team — they’re who you work with daily

You balance both — it depends on the week or the topic

The executive team — that’s where company-wide alignment happens

You serve customers first — org alignment is secondary

Focus on your product agenda and avoid executive politics

Build a strong partnership with the R&D leader — your closest operational counterpart

Focus on Marketing and Sales alignment to ensure product success post-launch

Build trust by understanding different perspectives and actively contributing to shared goals

Actively shape strategy alongside the CEO and leadership team

Drive execution by translating company strategy into product plans

Own product strategy, but leave company direction to execs

Focus on market research to inform strategy

Escalate disagreements to higher management immediately

Collaborate closely with other team leaders and work through them

Influence through strong relationships, shared goals, and clear communication

Use process to formalize decision-making and get buy-in

Decline firmly to show confidence in your expertise

Respectfully share data and reasoning, propose alternatives, and align on shared goals

Agree publicly but continue with my plans

Avoid saying no to keep the peace

Follow gut instincts mainly, as data can be misleading

Rely mostly on stakeholder opinions to gain buy-in

Focus exclusively on quantitative data

Use data as the foundation, supplemented by experience and input from key stakeholders

Escalate any disagreement to leadership immediately

Try to influence first through dialogue and collaboration; escalate only unresolved critical issues

Avoid escalation completely to maintain relationships

Influence only your direct reports; escalate everything else