Start with the decisions, not the document
Many strategy processes produce broad ambitions, long roadmaps and more initiatives than the team can deliver. Start by naming the decisions the strategy must make easier: which customer to serve, which risk to reduce, what to stop, or what evidence is needed before the next investment.
1. Choose the customer and buying situation
A broad market category is not enough to guide priorities. Describe the type of company with the problem, who feels the consequence, who owns the budget and what makes the need urgent now. A narrow entry point creates faster learning and clearer product choices without limiting the long-term ambition.
2. Describe the problem before the solution
Technology companies naturally explain what the product can do. Strategy should first explain the cost, risk or missed opportunity the customer wants to reduce. Use the customer’s language. If the explanation only makes sense inside the product team, it is not finished.
3. Define the evidence you need
Important product choices depend on assumptions: willingness to pay, implementation effort, measurable value and repeatability. Make those assumptions visible and prioritise the work that removes the most consequential uncertainty. That may be a customer interview, a paid pilot, a technical test or an onboarding change—not necessarily another feature.
4. Use prioritisation criteria that survive pressure
Evaluate initiatives with a small, consistent set of questions: How important is the customer problem? What commercial effect could this create? Which critical uncertainty does it reduce? What capacity, dependencies and risk does it require? Does it support the chosen direction? The criteria do not replace judgement; they make judgement visible and comparable.
5. Be explicit about what you will not do
Strategy is also exclusion. Name the customer groups, problems or product opportunities that are not priorities now. This protects capacity and gives the team a credible reason to say no without restarting the whole debate.
Turn strategy into an operating rhythm
Use the strategy in roadmap reviews, customer learning and outcome discussions. A practical first format is one page covering the target customer, problem, value proposition, key assumptions, prioritisation criteria and the three most important outcomes for the next 90 days. Review it as evidence changes.
The test
When two good initiatives compete for the same capacity, can the team use the strategy to choose without escalating the decision back to leadership? If not, the strategy needs clearer choices. Read more about my product strategy work at markedogvekst.no/en/product-strategy/.