Hi Jim, I recommend the book I link to in article: Roger Martin, Playing to Win, Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.

Hi David, Thanks for sharing your question. I think it is great when product management is involved in setting the business strategy. For example, the head of product may be part of the leadership team and represent product management’s perspectives and interests. Additionally, the winning aspiration may guide the individual product visions, the playing fields should help choose the right markets for specific products, and the competitive advantage may influence business model and in some cases, product features. But the best advice I can give is to ask yourself if and how your product is related to the business strategy and how this strategy help you make the right strategic decisions for your product. Hope this helps!

You’re welcome Ahmed. If you use OKRs to capture strategic business goals, then these are likely to change whenever the business strategy changes. Hope this helps!

Thanks, a lot Roman for your reply. This makes it much clearer.
A follow-up question: I find it hard to understand the relationship between the company’s annual (or biannual) objectives (OKRs) and its business strategy. How do they differ? And if we review the business strategy bi-annually, does this mean that our annual OKRs could be updated too?
Could you please shed some light on this topic?

You’re welcome Ahmed and thanks for asking the question. For early-stage startups, the business and product strategy are sometimes the same. But I generally recommend to separate them as early as possible. This helps you create a clear strategy to grow the business and to develop a plan how to grow the product. Hope this helps!

Hi Keith, Thank you for sharing your question. As the objective of a product strategy is different from a business strategy, I find that the former benefits from using a dedicated format. A product strategy serves to communicate how we intend to achieve product success; a business strategy states how we want to attain business success. But if you successfully use Roger Martin’s strategy definition for your products, then that’s great. Does this help?