Product Strategist - a Role that Transforms Digital Companies

What is a product strategist?

A digital product strategist is a person who creates and implements tactics for improving the performance of digital products. They use their knowledge, deep market analysis, and product validation results to help companies in designing and constantly adjusting their detailed product development strategy and roadmaps.

A product strategist enhances the product’s vision and mission. They can verify if the product’s business goals are mirrored in daily activities and decisions. They also keep all parties accountable, so that:

• business goals are clear and valid,
• validation criteria are well-defined, clear, and accurate,
• key business parameters are measured,
• time of validation is clearly specified,
• scope of development is aligned with product goals.

You can create a product strategist role within your company, or hire an external PS to temporarily support your efforts. In our opinion, it’s always more beneficial to have a digital product strategist on board. At least one. Here at Boldare, we have a few PSs who work together, share ideas, and support each other. When we develop digital products for our clients, we involve product strategists throughout the whole process of cooperation. They are present during each phase of full cycle product development. They compare themselves to the role of Sherpas who lead the climbers through dangerous Himalayan trails:

“We are like Sherpas who accompany their clients all the way to the last base camp, or sometimes even to the top of Mount Everest, or another Himalayan peak.”

- says Aneta Orszewska (Boldare’s product strategist) -

“Sherpas are not just guides and porters, but they help the climbers with making difficult, sometimes risky, decisions on the way; they assist them in reacting to changing conditions. They know the way to the top, but they keep their eyes wide open as the trail is full of hidden traps.”

Like Sherpas, product strategists are always there for their clients. They know each client’s strengths and weaknesses; they know when it’s time to slow down or speed up; they can judge if the clients are ready for the next step or not.

What does a product strategist do?

Areas of expertise and operation

The product strategist’s role is to work mostly within the area of product, processes, and people (board of directors, stakeholders, teams, clients, and users). At the beginning of a collaboration with a client, a product strategist will help them clarify product vision, implement agile teamwork, match product goals with user’s needs, and set up proper development processes. They also support them with creating an attractive and clear product portfolio. At the later stages, product strategists continuously analyze the business model and adapt it to changing market circumstances. They do this by:

• validating product ideas,
• designing new solutions and adjusting existing ones,
• building hypotheses to test the product with users,
• analyzing the market to find new opportunities and identify risks,
• recommending the right measures and metrics to validate the progress of product growth,
• running experiments within areas of product and processes,
• analyzing feedback from users.

All these tasks and responsibilities require close collaboration with various teams and roles within the organization.

Who does a product strategist collaborate with?

The digital product strategist works closely with the product team, the client, and with the product itself. But the role that can benefit the most from PS support is the product owner (PO). Product owners can count on a product strategist’s assistance with:

• product vision and goals,
• product strategy,
• development backlog,
• processes and frameworks,
• planning releases,
• direction of product development,
• key decisions,
• user feedback analysis,
• presentation of ideas to the board of directors and/or stakeholders.

A product strategist can also support product managers (if the organization has them on board) with monitoring the current state of development and contextualizing technical progress for the stakeholders. At Boldare, we don’t have managers (you can read more about it in this article: Benefits of working without project managers); our product strategists work closely with our clients’ product managers. They also support Scrum masters and developers in travelling the build-measure-learn cycle (Lean Startup methodology).

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Does a PS create product strategy?

Product strategy is a high-level transparent plan that describes how to make and keep the product successful. It’s a long-term vision with a few major milestones that help the product teams navigate. The product strategy serves every team and person involved in the product’s development, sales, and customer success activities. Thus, it needs to be solid and always valid.

Digital product strategists do not create a strategy by themselves. Product strategy is a result of close collaboration between the PS and other product team members. Designing a good product strategy is not an easy task, so the PS and PO usually consult other specialists and board members who know the company’s overall vision, mission and business model.

A good product strategy needs frequent adjustments. The product strategist - who constantly observes changes in market demands, user needs, and innovations - advises on necessary amendments to the strategy. Product strategy should at all times reflect emerging insights, and changes in the digital market and technology.

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Benefits of having a product strategist on board

Why do you need a digital product strategist in your company? For better product discovery and performance. A good PS can fix, guard, and glue together many areas of business: tactical, technical, operational, client- and market-related. They know how to capture a broad picture of your product’s current situation, and how to use it for better decision-making. They are also equipped with the knowledge and experience to set current priorities that deliver the greatest business value.

With a product strategist on board you can benefit in the following areas:

• Product vision - why do you want to build the product?
• Strategy - how do you want to put the vision into action?
• Roadmap - what will the timeline look like? (setting a detailed plan)
• Tactics - how to release the product? (what iterations are needed)
• Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) - are the assumptions valid? (frequently checking, testing, and recommending improvements)

The PS guards the product development process

Product strategists can not only lead your product development team through all four phases of full cycle product development, but also support an efficient transition of the product between FCPD phases. They monitor the current phase of the product and take the necessary steps to move it further on. They can prevent difficult and risky situations that can occur, such as:

• your teams and product become a “feature factory” (they don’t focus on discovering and validating user needs, but on creating new features);
• your teams and product are not built in alignment with the business goals;
• you have a lot of feedback from users, but you don’t know how to use it.

Product strategists run deep market research and frequently analyze the digital market situation in order to correctly navigate your digital product design and development.

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The PS analyzes the market

Digital product strategists analyze the market in search of new opportunities and potential risks. This way, they have a bird’s-eye view of the product’s future environment, and that makes them effective product consultants. Collecting and analyzing market data, they are able to help with designing so-called “user persona”. They research various channels to gain insight into the behaviors of the target audience. Thanks to this, the PO and other members of a product team know the levels of user engagement and can react accordingly.

After releasing the first version of your app (but also at later stages of development) it’s crucial to observe users’ reactions and gather feedback. For this, you need to use the right metrics and measures. This is also something that a product strategist can help you with. They can advise on the most important market factors to measure, and how to do so.

What makes an excellent product strategist?

You may wonder how to recognize a good product strategist, or what’s needed to become one. Well, an excellent product strategist needs a certain set of skills and competencies. They need to be highly adaptive and ready to operate in various company, product, and market situations. They have to be able to communicate effectively with employees at various levels and areas. Public speaking and rhetorical skills are helpful when they need to present ideas and strategy to a board of directors.

Excellent product strategists are creative problem-solvers and great observers. They are emotionally mature and intelligent - they know how to respond to any user or team member feedback. Other common abilities of a good product strategist are:

• an ability to understand data,
• an ability to draw conclusions,
• an ability to turn short-term tactics into long-term strategy,
• an ability to build hypotheses,
• an ability to think big and come up with innovative ideas,
• persuasion.

Why do we offer PS services?

At Boldare, we believe that an excellent digital product strategist can contribute broadly to digital product development. Their impact is inestimable. They can be real game-changers that drive a product towards higher business and user value. Thus we offer product strategist services to all of our clients. If you have any questions or need more information about how we support companies in developing digital products, contact us.