ONE THING on Strategy as the Connective Layer

In my first VP Product role, my company had a charismatic founder with a strong vision of where he wanted the organization to go. But the vision was high level and long term, like the top of a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid were the stakeholders' actions and tactics, a list of dozens of requests.

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ONE THING on Roadmap Discovery

A new release is a golden opportunity to learn. Sometimes called a discovery period, it's when you get new data showing success or failure for customers and for the organization. Has the new capability changed customer behavior measurably? Are they more engaged? More likely to buy, upgrade, or renew?

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ONE THING on OKRs Alignment

OKRs are meant to create alignment on goals. The best approach is to create one set of shared OKRs for an entire team. Shared OKRs promote collaboration, problem-solving, and focus. This may mean that individuals have no OKRs of their own — and that’s ok! The team rises or falls together.

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ONE THING on OKRs: Committed vs. Aspirational

When creating Objectives and Key Results, consider two types:
Committed are OKRs that you must meet. These are things like contractual obligations or new SLAs you need to improve to hit.
Aspirational are more like a stretch goal, something where you want to reach as far as you can and 70% of that number is still good. They may be recalibrated along the way.

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ONE THING on Stepping on People's Toes

As the product person, you are ultimately responsible for the success of your product. This usually means you inform, direct, and coordinate among functions as diverse as engineering, sales, and even finance. Sometimes, you may have to get into the weeds, even doing some of the work yourself. (I once spent 2 years doing partnerships because my product needed it.)

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ONE THING on Impossible Outcomes

Tesla, Netflix, Dollar Shave Club — these organizations don't just succeed. Each has redefined the rules of their industry and achieved results once considered impossible. But they didn't succeed, really, on technical innovation. The key ingredient was (and remains) culture.

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ONE THING on Product Lifecycle

Where is your product in its lifecycle? Is it in early startup mode? Rapid growth? Cash cow? Most big companies get big by having a portfolio of products to “stack" lifecycles on top of each other. Sometimes you have to produce a roadmap of several products at the same time, a “portfolio roadmap".

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