Product Strategy Alignment in 5 Days
Apply a proven framework that transforms conflicting priorities into a cohesive product strategy your entire organization supports.
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Course overview
A compelling product strategy unites leadership and achieves business goals
Most product teams struggle with constantly shifting priorities and cross-functional misalignment that derail roadmaps and frustrate everyone involved. Product strategy can take weeks to months to develop and get everyone to agree to, and it may no longer be relevant by the time you’re done. Finally, tracing your team’s hard work to business value can be difficult.
We’ve experienced all these challenges many times, and seen where ineffective strategies end up looking like:
❌ Constantly shifting priorities, even after a roadmap has been presented and agreed upon.
❌ Conflict between Sales, CX, Marketing, and Engineering teams, never able to agree on overarching priorities.
❌ Failing to connect the product work to company goals and financial metrics
After many years of facing these challenges at startups and scale-ups, we developed a repeatable 5-day sprint framework to quickly align your entire organization on a product strategy to guide your roadmap and decisions.
Now, your teams can easily prioritize product decisions and build an aligned roadmap, knowing that the tough trade-offs have already been agreed on. As a leader, you can focus on the big picture instead of constantly putting out fires and resolving misalignment conflicts.
WHAT YOU WILL GET:
✅ Master the 5-Day Strategy Sprint - Learn to facilitate a proven process that aligns your organization on strategic priorities in just one week.
✅ Connect Product Work to Business Value - Apply our metrics-based approach to make strategic trade-offs that directly impact company goals.
✅ Lead Alignment Workshops with Confidence - Practice facilitating the 16 exercises executives respect and respond to.
✅ Walk Away with a Complete Toolkit - Get every template, script, timeline and workshop exercise needed to run your own sprint.
This is an interactive course with 9 hours of live instruction. During our Zoom sessions, we’ll cover case studies, discuss your challenges, and practice facilitating several product strategy sprint exercises that you can use immediately.
The course also includes:
- Case studies
- Real-life examples
- Interactive exercises
- Templates and scripts
- Bonus: Office hours
Plus, homework to put what you learn into practice.
WHO WILL BENEFIT MOST FROM THIS COURSE:
Product leaders and experienced Senior or Principal Product Managers looking to significantly impact their organization, drive change, and move from execution to strategic leadership.
- You feel like your current product strategy either does not exist or is inadequate
- You feel like you are spending too much of your time trying to align your leaders without avail
- You feel like every person in your company has a different definition of a product strategy, and you want to change that
- You want to transition from execution to strategic leadership
- You are an ambitious, self-aware, and open-minded product leader
- You have a significant sphere of influence in your org and want to increase it even further
WHO THIS COURSE IS NOT FOR:
- You are somewhat new to product management or have less than 5 years of experience
- Your sphere of influence at the company is relatively narrow
- You are not responsible for the strategic direction of your product area - someone else sets it for you
- Your startup is still defining product-market fit
- You are a product strategy expert
Who is this course for
01
Product Leaders responsible for strategic direction. Your title might be GPM, Head/Director or VP of Product, CPO.
02
Senior/Principal Product Managers looking to shape product strategy. You may be the only PM at your company.
03
Functional leaders who are driving Product in the absence of a PM leader. You could be a design or engineering leader.
What you’ll get out of this course
A repeatable one-week framework to achieve cross-functional alignment on product strategy
We've been in the trenches many times and learned from many mistakes as IC PMs, PM leaders and Chief Product Officers for real companies (not just the FAANGs with unlimited resources). We're here to give you a practical plan rooted in both theory and real-world experience.
A unique method to create product strategy rooted in business metrics
Most product strategies don't connect outcomes to business goals because it is challenging. We’ve struggled with this so many times until we created a reliable time-tested approach for using business metrics and goals to make every tough strategic trade-off decision a no-brainer.
16 interactive exercises you can use immediately
Leading any workshop is hard on its own. It requires a lot of preparation on top of our daily work as product leaders. We’ve done this work for you and created a series of interactive Miro exercises that help you lead your cross-functional heads and execs to strategic alignment.
Live opportunities to practice facilitating
While most PMs practice facilitation at work often, leading a discussion as a product leader takes this skill a level up. We are creating an environment for you to use real-world examples to facilitate the exercises with course participants and instructors to help your practice.
Every single artifact you need to run your own product strategy sprint
Running a product strategy sprint requires templates, scripts, emails, timelines, and more, which are time-consuming to create. We’ve done the hard part for you and turned all the assets into a repeatable process so that you can walk away with tools you can use right away.
Advance your career in a strategic direction
This is an excellent opportunity to position yourself as a strategic leader who drives organizational alignment, not just product execution.
What’s included
Live sessions
Learn directly from your instructors in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
Course syllabus
5 live sessions • 26 lessons • 2 projects
Week 1
- 📄
Introduction to Katia, Vicky & Chris
- 📄
Why a 5-day sprint?
- 📄
Real life examples of success
- 📄
What makes a product strategy compelling?
- 📄
Where product strategy usually fails?
- 📄
Case studies and examples
- ✍️
What is your product org's strategy?
Submit by Mar 25 - 📄
People you need to partner with
- 📄
Data you need to gather
- 📄
AI prompts to help analyze your data
- 📄
Facilitation techniques for success
- ✍️
Prepare for your first sprint
Submit by Mar 25
May
12
Session 1 - Introduction review and Q&A
Introduction - Why a 5-day sprint will be your new superpower?
This first module will introduce you to this approach of a 5-day product strategy sprint. We'll share why be believe this approach is ideal for teams that are struggling to create an effective strategy and how this will become your new superpower in the battle to build the right product that delivers measurable value.
Our take on Product Strategy
In this module, we will explore what an effective product strategy looks like and the various types of product strategies. We’ll share some of the horror stories in our own experiences around strategy and some of the big wins.
Part of this module will be a reflection on your own experiences with strategy. Ultimately, you’ll end this module with a stronger understanding of Product Strategy.
Why preparation is key!
This module outlines the various activities and work you must prepare ahead of a product strategy sprint. In a series of lessons, you will not only understand the key elements to prepare but also some of the challenges and tactical ways to overcome them that you might face.
Preparation is key to the success of any sprint. You will complete this module with a deep understanding of how to ensure the success of your product strategy sprint.
Week 2
- 📄
Review exercises in Miro
- 📄
Role-play exercises
- 📄
Draw conclusions based on the exercises
- 📄
Review exercises
- 📄
Role-play exercises
- 📄
Draw conclusions based on the exercises
- 📄
Review exercises
- 📄
Role-play exercises
- 📄
Draw conclusions based on the exercises
- 📄
Review exercises
- 📄
Role-play exercises
- 📄
Draw conclusions based on the exercises
May
20
Session 2 - Mastering day one and two of the sprint
May
22
Session 3 - Getting the most out of day three and four
Module - Assessing the present (day 1)
In this module, we take you through the purpose, outcomes and activities in Day One of the sprint.
Day one - Assess the present - Day one will focus on aligning and validating the present to create a solid foundation for the team's decisions throughout the week.
Module - Visualising the future (day 2)
In this module, we take you through the purpose, outcomes and activities in Day 2 of the sprint.
Day two - Visualize the future - Day two will focus on reviewing and aligning on the vision of the future. Teams will review and validate the product vision as well as the financial goals/metrics of the business.
Module - Identifying obstacles (day 3)
In this module, we take you through the purpose, outcomes and activities in Day 3 of the sprint.
Day three - Identify Obstacles - Day three will focus on identifying the business's obstacles to achieving the future outlined on day two. Using the metrics identified on day two, teams will brainstorm the obstacles and prioritise those that will have the most significant impact on the business and customers if they can overcome them.
Module - Strategizing approaches (day 4)
In this module, we take you through the purpose, outcomes and activities in Day 4 of the sprint.
Day four - Strategize approaches - Day four will focus on crafting a guiding policy that directs the
product and engineering team’s efforts toward resolving the top obstacles to achieving business goals.
Week 3
- 📄
Review exercises
- 📄
Role-play exercises
- 📄
Draw conclusions based on the exercises
- 📄
Elements of the actionable strategy
May
27
Session 4 - Wrapping up the sprint with an actionable strategy
May
29
Bonus Office Hours
Module - Plan to execute (day 5)
In this module, we take you through the purpose, outcomes and activities in Day 5 of the sprint.
Day five—Plan to execute—The final day will be spent crafting the plan to execute the Product Strategy. Teams will start by reviewing the decisions and outcomes of previous days and running through some exercises to identify the next actions. Teams will also undergo a risk assessment exercise to identify risks and mitigation tactics.
What people are saying
Julie Gamboa
Elle
Jonathan Steingiesser
Dianne
Julia Stead
Serra Suckow
Meet your instructors
Vicky Irvin
Vicky Irvin
Vicky has spent two decades building products at companies ranging from seed stage startups to $300M pre-IPO scaleups, in roles from PM to GPM to Chief Product Officer. She has managed, trained and coached Product Managers of all levels to maximize their impact on the business while growing their careers.
Vicky loves the process of clarifying customer needs and market forces, uncovering how a company’s product-related problems impact business goals, and partnering with cross-functional teams to solve for both the customer and the business.
Katia Suchkova
Katia Suchkova
Katia is a seasoned product manager and leader with extensive experience building products and leading teams across B2B startups, scale-ups, and post-IPO enterprises. Over the past six years, she has pivoted her career toward course creation, leadership coaching, and consulting, further embracing her entrepreneurial spirit.
Katia's passion lies in empowering first-time product leaders and helping them confidently step into their new roles while staying good humans. She focuses on guiding these leaders to drive impactful product initiatives that benefit both the business and its customers, all while helping their ICs and teams thrive.
Chris Nicol
Chris Nicol
Chris is an experienced product leader and coach who has built B2B SaaS products for over 20 years. He has been on the startup to scaleup journey multiple times, scaling B2B companies from $3M to $50M+.
Chris found his zone of genius in coaching Product Managers and Leaders to help them thrive in their roles. He is passionate about helping teams craft an effective strategy that delivers measurable value to customers and businesses.
Course schedule
3-5 hours per week
Monday, May 12
10am - 11am PST
Introductions, why 5-day sprint, breakout discussions, Q&A.
Tuesdays, May 20, 27 & Thursday, May 22
10am - 11am PST
These are live sessions where we'll dive into each sprint day, practicing facilitation, reviewing exercises, and discussing challenges.
Thursday, May 29
10am - 11am PST
Bonus office hours. Bring your questions, challenges, and ideas.
Weekly projects
2-3 hours per week
Homework to put what you learn into practice.
Learning is better with cohorts
Active hands-on learning
This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects
Interactive and project-based
You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams
Learn with a cohort of peers
Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you