Unpacking Strategy
We talked about what strategy actually is, how it differs from planning, and why the PMs who stand out are often not the ones with more frameworks, but the ones with sharper judgment.
Like many other PMs, I've been told that I am not strategic enough. I remember looking for better strategy frameworks.
It took years for me to internalize that frameworks can organize thought, but cannot replace the quality of the thought.
2 PMs can use the exact same framework and still produce very different strategic quality.
The framework itself does not tell you what matters most, what is noise, which tradeoff is more strategic.
And it definitely does not tell you when an answer sounds reasonable, but is actually weak.
That part is judgment.
This is where product strategy felt so hard for me.
Because the real work is seeing clearly enough to know what deserves more weight, what assumptions need to be challenged, and what choices will actually hold up over time.
This has always been critical, but even more so now as AI makes execution faster, the gap between structured thinking and strong thinking becomes easier to see.
You can have more output.
More analysis.
More options.
And still miss the point.
That’s part of what Rachel Windzberg 🚀 and I unpacked in our Maven session on product strategy.
We talked about what strategy actually is, how it differs from planning, and why the PMs who stand out are often not the ones with more frameworks, but the ones with sharper judgment.
Follow the link for the recording: https://lnkd.in/gU5jxfDi