“A set of ideas that inspire a move to a position of advantage over a meaningful period of time.”
To transpose that into bullets:
1-A set of ideas
2-that inspire
3-a move to
4-a position of advantage
5-over a meaningful period of time
This is the definition of strategy or strategic that I work with. It’s not supposed to be the “be all end all” definition of strategy. Take it or leave it. But I find it useful in my area of work for asking the questions:
- Is this is actually a strategy?
- Is this actually strategic?
But are those the right questions? By common practice, yes. Almost always when we create, propose, or implement a strategy, the beneficiary is us.
But as product owners, we need to go deeper – we need to ask: is this actually strategic for our customers?
Forget about whether it’s strategic for you. Instead – is it:
- a set of solutions (ideas) to problems that our customers have
- that inspire them, or help them imagine a different reality,
- to move or transform into a different kind of business
- in a way that gives them a competitive advantage
- over a period of time that lets them capitalize on all of the above
A strategic solution doesn’t need to do shit for the owners of the solution – it needs to do something for the people using it.