Every day, I see individuals and teams struggle with connecting product work to the big picture, and I keep coming back to a fundamental flaw in how Product Strategy is taught.
My observation is this: the most cited and most popular Product Strategy approaches, methodologies, frameworks, and tools are rooted in the fundamental idea that only one product exists, but the majority of people trying to learn, practice, and apply Product Strategy work at companies with more than one product.
These popular approaches are quite good for early-stage startups, but time and time again, I've seen them fall apart once that startup wants to grow up. They're a disaster when people try to use them at companies operating at scale.
There's no mechanism within these Product Strategy frameworks to create shared vision and goals across products. As a result, there is no shared strategy. In environments where guidance and constraints on how the products should work together is exactly what's needed, product teams are left to sort it out on their own without any model or reference point.
For companies that have more than one product, I just can't think of any other thing that prevents growth, competitive advantage, and ROI than this.
