Thread by @ahuja_karan

👋🏽 We’re back! Welcome to the final workshop for @lennysan's #PM fundamentals course.

Last week, we covered all things execution. Today, I’ll be live-tweeting about product strategy & vision.

Let’s dive in & learn how you can go from PM → Senior PM by improving at strategy.

First, a quick recap of where we left off.

Last week, Lenny shared 3 things we need to get right for masterful execution.
1⃣Build the right engine
2⃣Tune the engine
3⃣Drive in the right direction

#3 is all about strategy and vision.

https://twitter.com/ahuja_karan/status/1370176866972176385?s=20

🔺Strategy & Vision are at the top of Lenny’s PM Fundamentals pyramid that we’ve been discussing.

@lennysan says: “It’s the single biggest skill that separates new PMs from Senior PMs”

Why does @lennysan say this?

It’s bc executing the wrong strategy means you lose.

You could be incredibly good at every other PM skill such as communication, execution, collaboration.

But, if you have the wrong strategy, nothing else matters. You lose.

Something like this 👇🏽

🌟 So, how do you get great at strategy?

Don't worry, Lenny’s got your back. Here’s what we'll cover today.

🤔 WTF is Strategy?

Strategy = Your plan to achieve what you want to achieve.

Or put even simpler...

Strategy = Your plan to win!

🚘 Let’s look at an example.

@Tesla wants to achieve is to create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s transition to electric vehicles.

How do they get there? Following are their steps to getting there👇

Next, let’s see where strategy fits in.

@lennysan says: Strategy comes in once you have your mission and vision in mind.

And once you have your strategy, you can then figure out your goals, which in turn inform your roadmap + tasks.

Let’s look at each of these components.

Mission = Purpose of your company or your team.

Some examples:
- IKEA: To create a better everyday life for the many people.
- @TEDTalks: Spread ideas.
@sweetgreen: To inspire healthier communities by connecting people to real food.

🔮Vision = What the world looks like when you’ve achieved your mission.

Couple examples:
- @Microsoft: A computer on every desk and in every home.
- @TeachForAmerica: One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.

Once we’ve codified our mission & vision, we work on strategy.

Strategy = our plan to achieve that vision (more in tweets below).

Your strategy then informs your goals = a way to measure progress.

Example of a goal → @Microsoft: x% of homes with a computer.

🚘 Let’s look at the Tesla example again to bring this all together.

Alright, we know what strategy is and where it fits in.

Next, let’s talk about how to actually create a successful strategy.

@lennysan says there are 3 steps to it.
📝 Developing the strategy
🗣️ Articulating the strategy
🏗️ Acting on the strategy

📝 Step 1: Developing your strategy

To develop a successful strategy, we first need to understand the qualities of a good strategy.

Here are the 5 key qualities of a good strategy.

Let’s look at an example. Assume we work at Airbnb.

Here’s what a bad strategy looks like.

And here’s what a better strategy looks like for the same example.

✅ Problem-oriented
✅ Actionable
✅ Focused
✅ Cohesive
✅ Opinionated

We've covered the qualities of a good strategy. Now, how do you actually come up with a winning strategy?

Lenny has 3 tactics that he’s found valuable over the years.
1⃣Identify the kernel
2⃣Break the problem down into levers
3⃣Work backward from the ideal

[on developing a winning strategy]

Tactic1⃣- Identify the kernel

What’s the 1 core insight that will drive your strategy?

Elon’s insight with @SpaceX was that you could build rockets a lot cheaper.

[on developing a winning strategy]

Tactic2⃣- Break the problem down into levers

A lever = an investment you can make to get closer to achieving your vision.

Here’s an example of how Airbnb broke down Instant Book into 5 levers.

[on developing a winning strategy]

Tactic3⃣- Work backward from the ideal

• If you were to start over, what would your experience look like?
• If a competitor would come into the space, how would they disrupt you?

Work backward from that.

Here’s how Amazon does this 👇🏽

@lennysan: “It takes time to get good at strategy”

You basically have to find a way to do two things at once:
– Keep executing well
– Keep building your strategic muscle

Here are @lennysan's tips on how to build your strategic mindset.

➡️ Craft and execute strategies
➡️ Study colleagues who are great strategic thinkers
➡️ Read other people’s strategy docs
➡️ Push back on people’s strategy, ask Qs
➡️ Read books about strategy
➡️ Get an MBA??

🌟 Hanging in there? Let's do a quick recap:

Qualities of a good strategy
✅ Problem-oriented
✅ Actionable
✅ Focused
✅ Cohesive
✅ Opinionated

3 tactics to develop a good strategy
▶️ Identify the kernel
▶️ Break the problem down into levers
▶️ Work backward from the ideal

🗣️ Step 2: Articulating your strategy

We’ve talked about developing your strategy, let’s learn how to articulate it.

The SCR framework & minto pyramid is a perfect framework to structure your strategy and communicate it.

Here’s a reminder of what the framework looks like:

And here’s how you can use it to communicate your strategy.

▶️ Situation = Mission and vision
▶️ Complication = Problem statement | What’s keeping you from achieving your vision?
▶️ Resolution = Your strategy!

🪢 Tying it all together, here’s Lenny’s strategy template.

...and a quick example of the template applied to Airbnb’s Instant Book product.

✨ Pro-tip for communicating strategy → Come up with a metaphor or make it visual.

Ex: Lenny used the minefield metaphor to help visualize the problem for Airbnb hosts.

Any one of the happenings below become problems for hosts.

Strategy = eliminate potential mines.

You can also use a flywheel that shows how all the pieces come together.

For example, here’s @DoorDash's flywheel.

🏗️ Step 3: Acting on your strategy

Anyone can develop a strategy and communicate it, but you also need to hold on to the strategy and use it.

Here are 3 tips to act on your strategy:

🤓 Recap: What we learned today

Strategy = your plan to win!

📝 Developing strategy
- 5 qualities of a good strategy
- 3 tactics to create a winning strategy

🗣️ Articulating strategy
- SCR, Minto

🏗️ Acting on strategy

😅 Remember, the PM job is hard.

You won’t become a great PM just by taking a course, (or reading blog posts, books, tweets).

But you will by taking the lessons, habits, frameworks, skills we’ve been focusing on and putting them into practice in your own work and company.

Stay focused and keep working on the 5 skills we've discussed over the past 3 weeks.

...and keep reminding yourself of the 10 traits of Great PMs.

And if you’re ever again wondering – am I doing a good job, keep coming back to this simple framework 👇🏽

👋🏽 That's all folks!

It's been an honor to partner with @lennysan, @patel0phone, @jonahwolfraim, other coaches on this introductory course, and we hope you learned something new today.

Finally, HUGE THANKS to @lennysan for all he does to give back to the #PM community! 🙏🏽🙏🏽

🔝 Back to the top:

https://twitter.com/ahuja_karan/status/1372698928274046978?s=20