AMA: GitLab Director of Product Management, Jacqueline Porter on Product Strategy

Validation is a great signal that your product strategy is headed in the right direction before you start building against it. My favorite methods for validation include: Conducting surveys on the themes of the strategy to see how much people resonate with it Validating the strategy with internal audiences Interviewing existing customers where I will show them the strategy in pieces and ask their thoughts for feedback Going to Kubecon/other industry events and discussing the strategy with people ...Read More

Cadence for evaluating strategy is often set by the business. I have been at companies that will redo their company strategy every 3-4 years, and then as a result product strategy is reevaluated every 3 years in suit. I I traditionally plan strategy using 1,3,5, and 10-year product strategy horizons. 1-year strategies are very tactical and get iterated on continuously 3 years are revisited 2-3 years 5-year strategies are revised every 5 years 10-year strategies are sometimes only created once an ...Read More

The one thing that stays the same is ... is change (and maybe customers want to buy things)! In particularly volatile and fast-moving industries, strategies must be proportionately flexible and responsive. I have found implementing a strategy based on the following key questions helps guide you in being able to adequately formulate the next steps in the roadmap, services, and approach: What personas/segments/industries are currently being actively targeted and served well by the existing solutio ...Read More

These don't have to be mutually exclusive. In many of the companies I worked in the install base actually were former users of old products and had some legacy tools still existing in pockets of their organization. It is critical to thoroughly understand your customer and deep dive into what will win your market. Often those don't have to compete or take away from each other. Some examples can be: Critical workflows for managing specific tasks in the platform - usability Improving integrations w ...Read More