AMA: Google Group Product Manager, Wear OS, Shahid Hussain on Product Strategy

No-one can, or should ever be sure that they have a 100% right product strategy. But you can do a lot to de-risk your approach, and your tactics should vary depending on how much time you have to plan. * Is your strategy ultimately going to drive the change in behaviour you want? Find the key participants in your strategy -- e.g. the customers -- and talk, talk, talk to them. You'll learn a ton from the first 5-10 conversations, and suddenly you'll start to hear the same themes and be able to predict what they'll say. Then you can move on. * Read, and connect with people who are familiar with this situation in your industry or other industries. How did things work out? Is the current market / environment similar enough that you can draw conclusions? * The more experienced you are, the more confident you can be about relying on product intuition. A phrase I often use is "we've seen this movie before" and, it's surprising how many times the same situation gets repeated.

Market trends can be a good indicator of what will matter to users, investors or stakeholders. Don't ignore them, but also don't let them distract you from the fundamentals. * Do you think this trend will drive a permanent shift in the market you operate in? If so -- consider how you can position yourself for success in the long term and the pros / cons of investing in alignment. If not, consider whether there are short / mid term changes you want to make to take advantage, or whether you just want to ride it out. * Identify where the trend is coming from. Is it driven by macroeconomics? A technological innovation? And are you and your org well positioned to take advantage of it? * Are you moving early enough vs other competitors? If you have an opportunity to be out in front of the crowd -- can you position yourself as a leader in this trend and drive marketing value from doing so? * Does it genuinely drive economic advantage for you, either directly or by second order effects?

Prioritise with respect to the key goal that is important to the org -- but balance with your estimation of what you think can land. That sounds simple, but in large matrixed organisations, that can get hard quickly. * Sometimes it's not clear what advances the org's goal -- is there a key metric? Can you forecast a project's impact on that metric, and is that forecast credible? * If shipping a particular project needs alignment from lots of teams, do all of them share the same incentives you do? If not, can they support your goals, or will they deprioritise?

PMs should define the success conditions in the strategy (e.g. 20% market share, or $20M attributable revenue in H1 etc). Those success conditions should: * Ladder clearly up to the needs of the org or company * Define a realistic stretch goal, ideally validated through customer discussions or other qualitative or quantitative research -- including timelines * Cover direct and indirect effects as needed * Include countermetrics or contraindications that define changes to be avoided

If your org is driving significant benefit from a leadership position in the market -- whether that's a brand that drives an acquisition funnel, operating efficiency from scale or something else, it's reasonable to think about how to maintain that lead. * Consider carefully why you are in a leadership position versus other customer options (competitors, substitute products etc). Is it unique? Sustainable? Are there small firms that could steal share by, for example, providing a more specialised or concierge solution? Or is there a large firm which could extend into your space, with advantages (like access to funding and time) that you don't have? * Market leaders, especially large ones, are exposed to the innovator's dilemma. Should you invest in areas that could, if successful, cannibalise your larger business before anyone else does -- protecting your position?

If you know that customers are not willing to adopt your solution, that's a bad spot to be in. 1. Re-evaluate what led you to the decision to build & when to do it. Was there a gap in your methodology, or a piece of research that led you down this path? How can you avoid this for the next piece of strategy planning? 2. Don't hope for better adoption -- test and prove this out. Can you get a high quality signal that customers will adopt, e.g. customers will pay you now for access to it? 3. Is there a wider org that will bear the cost of holding this solution, and values it for reasons other than direct revenue?