A well-defined product strategy accelerates your career. It improves your odds of success. It inspires teams. In this highly interactive, case-based workshop, you'll learn six vital strategic frameworks, plus how to run a product strategy meeting as we simulate a modern-day Netflix Quarterly Product Strategy Meeting at the end of the session.

THE CHALLENGES

Today, product leaders are constantly challenged to act and think "more strategically." These tools frame their strategic thinking and accomplish work as metrics tied to each product strategy demonstrate.

Another challenge is building alignment across an organization. Everyone in a company has a perspective on how a product can be better, even folks with no experience building products. These tools and frameworks enable product leaders to develop a common language and plan that resonates across the organization to build cross-functional alignment.

Last, everyone within an organization has a point of view on how and where resources should be allocated. The simulated Quarterly Product Strategy Meeting enables students to participate in a meeting that will teach them to debate product strategy in open, more effective ways within their product organization and to allocate resources intelligently.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

You learn how to:

1. Describe the positioning and "something bigger" of your product that helps to build a brand using language that appeals to your customers and is well-understood by your marketing partners.

2. Craft a long-term product vision that provides clear direction. This vision also breaks down the plan into shorter, step-by-step "bite-size chews" that maintain flexibility as you encounter speedbumps and roadblocks.

3. Define a succinct product strategy—a hypothesis on how you will move your key metrics—by developing hypotheses that will delight customers in hard-to-copy, margin-enhancing ways.

4. Articulate metrics and tactics for each product strategy to effectively "align the wood behind the arrow."

5. You'll learn to tease out how to prioritize Growth, Engagement, and Monetization, depending on the company's size and goals. You'll define a clear metric for each of these three factors.

6. Communicate a quarterly plan using two roadmap formats: a "rolling four-quarter roadmap" and a "Now, Next, Later" approach.

7. Debate 2-3 modern-day Netflix cases, demonstrating how these product strategy frameworks help to form a common language that enables better communication and more thoughtful debate.

HOW THE COURSE WORKS

The first session sets the table by articulating six product strategy frameworks illustrated through many examples and cases.

The second session comprehensively applies the models, with applications to startups, B2B/enterprise companies, and consumer-focused companies.

This course is very efficient. There are two 2.5-hour classes, and the last half-hour of each class is an optional Q&A session. We'll open up the class fifteen minutes before the start time -- so you can ask questions at the beginning and begin to get to know each other. Then, we'll review each framework with many juicy examples from Netflix's past and present. The session is sprinkled with many mini-cases where students are asked, "What would you do if you were the product leader at Netflix?" We'll use Slido to build engagement and draw all students into a fast-paced conversation.

This is not a boring lecture. It's a lean-in experience, and you will be at the edge of your seat as you dive into the conversation—when you're up for it.

At the end of the second session, we'll simulate a Netflix Quarterly Product Strategy meeting, allowing you to see how a world-class product organization thinks about and discusses product strategy. The two 2.5-hour sessions are a lot of fun!

There will be plenty of "leave behind" materials. I will also provide pre-formatted Google Slides you can use to define your product strategy.

AGENDA

Pre-work

- Executive summary of all strategy frameworks (reading)

- Intro to Product Strategy video

- Netflix strategy example + slides

- Positioning and branding videos

Session 1 (9:00-11:30 am PT)

08:45 Welcome to join early to say "hello."

09:00 Intro to Product Strategy

09:10 GLEE product vision

09:25 GEM prioritization

09:50 DHM framework

10:15 SMT lockup

10:40 Roadmaps

10:50 Conclusion

11:00 Q&A (optional)

11:30 End

Optional mid-course homework (B2B, startup, and B2C examples)

Each product strategy example below includes a 10-minute video plus slides:

- Stripe

- Shopify

- Square

- Instagram

- Spotify

- Chegg (textbook rental startup, IPO 2013)

- Pre-formatted Google Slides for you to build your strategy.

Session 2: 9-11:30 am PT

08:45 Available to say “hello” and do online polling to get to know you

09:00 Intro

09:05 Startup and B2B examples

09:25 Netflix personalization swimlane

09:50 Maven swimlane exercise

10:20 Quarterly Product Strategy Meeting simulation

10:50 Conclusion

11:00 Q&A (optional)

11:30 End

Post-workshop materials

Maven Product Strategy (startup example illustrated through both video and slides)