AMA: GitLab Group Manager, Product, Derek Ferguson on Product Strategy

New ideas can come from anywhere, but the best ones usually emerge from those who truly understand the challenges within a specific space and are constantly listening to the people experiencing these problems daily. Apart from product managers talking with customers, I've seen great ideas come from engineering, design, sales, and executives. Conferences and user group meetups are also fertile grounds for new ideas. Customer advisory boards are amazing sources of great ideas, as these customers a ...Read More

This is a great question. Part of it depends on where you are in your career as a PM. It's hard to practice if you aren't given opportunities to contribute to the strategy in your daily job. But, in general, developing your skills here is an ongoing journey that involves practical experience, active learning, mentorship, and community engagement. Here’s how I approach it: Practice and experience: The most important thing is to keep practicing. Constantly evaluate opportunities, listen to feedbac ...Read More

This is the 10 million dollar question, isn't it? Maybe quite literally. The answer to this depends a bit on what market you are in and how large your total addressable market is. It is also going to depend on how established you are or how mature your product offering is. An ongoing successful strategy for a mature, established product involves more than just tracking feature releases. This question is very similar to the question about validating that your strategy is the right strategy, but I ...Read More

This question is very similar to the question about knowing that your strategy is successful, but I’m going to look at them through two different lenses. For this question, I’m going to look at it as a strategy for a new product that hasn’t been introduced yet, you have no active users, and you want to figure out if your strategy is the right one before you launch. To validate a strategy in this situation, the approach has to be proactive and thorough. The goal is to ensure that when you deliver ...Read More

Building internal confidence in the product strategy is all about clear, consistent communication and demonstrating progress through tangible metrics. You need to bring people along with you on the journey, not just ask them to trust you. This goes for everyone from executives to engineers. It's important to build confidence with everyone involved in the product, not just the people at the top of the hierarchy. The engineers who are actually doing the work to execute on the strategy are some of ...Read More

Balancing this is a delicate act that requires constant reassessment and a strategic approach. It's essential to recognize that both competitive differentiation and customer retention are critical to a product's success. Differentiation makes you stand out in the market, attracting new customers, while retention ensures that your existing customers stay satisfied and loyal. One approach I use is a cyclical evaluation process. Every month, I reassess priorities to see if anything has shifted. Thi ...Read More

Understanding your customer's ideal outcome or Jobs to be Done (JTBD) is always crucial for product managers. It keeps your focus sharp and aligned with what truly matters. Some of the ways that understanding this really helps PMs are: Solving real problems: When you deeply understand the JTBD, you’re not just building features for the sake of building them (e.g. "It would be really cool if we could do this"). You’re solving actual problems that your customers face. This makes your product indis ...Read More