Season 2 - Newsletter 09 --> Micro-edition | The First 90 Days Frameworks on 1:1, Product and Strategy Evaluation
Friends,
The first 90 days as a new PM newsletter was one of our most popular. But one trusted reader reached out to me and mentioned that while this was great advice, she was looking for more specific guidelines or even examples. So what would be some questions to ask in your one on ones or ways to evaluate the product or competition. Well here are some answers do those questions
As always we appreciate you sharing this newsletter if you think it could help a peer of yours improve their product skillset.
Q: In the first 30 days you mentioned it’s important to meet with each team members and ask them a set of questions? What questions should I ask?
Before we get to the questions, let’s talk approach. As Michael Watkins author of the First 90 Days suggest, we want to adopt a systematic approach. Simply put, you want to ask the same set of questions to each team member. This will allow you to identify divergent and convergent views. Ok on to the set of questions
What are the biggest challenges the organization is facing?
What are the biggest challenges this team is facing?
Why is the organization / team facing these challenges?
What are the most promising unexploited opportunities for growth?
What would need to happen for the organization to exploit the potential of these opportunities?
If you were me, what would you focus your attention on?
Who else should I meet? Why?
Remember, the goal here is to get a sense of how varied the answers are from teammate to teammate. If the answers diverge, that maybe signs of deeper team and organization issues.
Q: In the first 90 days how would I evaluate the product I am responsible for or contributing to?
While they are a ton of frameworks to evaluate a product, the following 7 simple questions (heavily based on Bandan product evaluation) should get you quickly going. Evaluate your product by answering the following questions:
Who is the customer ? (bonus for defining a sub segment such as big tech employees who are about to get married)
What is their needs? What problem are you solving?
Is that problem big enough? What is the market size?
Who else is solving the problem? How are they unique?
How do you currently reach them? What channels are employed?
What is the roadmap? What are the big upcoming bets or product heartbeats?
What are the current metrics? How is success currently measure? Had success been attained?
While succinct, these set of questions should provide a great evaluation of the current product you will be working on.
Q: In the first 90 days how do I determine if the organization I joined has a good strategy?
Interestingly Good Strategy continues to be this elusive unicorn. And while good strategy is rare and sometimes hard to discern, bad strategy or signs of bad strategy are much much more common. Kernels of good strategy according to Good Strategy / Bad Strategy by Richard P. Rumelt are the following:
The diagnosis. Good strategy identifies the challenge or obstacle to be faced and address.
The guiding policy. This is the plan selected to overcome the identified challenges. It defines a method and is not an aspirational vision or goal.
The set of coherent actions. These are specific action steps that are to be taken in accordance with the guiding policy.
An example. A doctor having made the diagnosis after examining a patient (diagnosis), selects a therapeutic approach (guiding policy) which consist of a specific diet, therapy and medication (coherent actions).
Now how to spot bad strategy
it’s fluff. it neither identifies a constraint or challenge and almost always defines a goal
it’s a set of goals. A set of goals is not a strategy but rather a plan or wishlist
it’s composed of the VMVS template. A vision, a mission, values and loosely coupled aspirations and goals masquerading as strategy.
The reason why we care about strategy is because it allows us to understand if the organization lucked its way into current success or whether it has developed the discipline to craft and execute strategy.
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