Product Strategy Template

This product strategy template is designed to guide you through the process of preparing a new product strategy, either for an existing product or a new product line. 

The process seeks to guide the team through the necessary steps to pool knowledge and expertise in order to produce the most effective strategy. 

The end goal of this process is a report which clearly outlines the product strategy and sets out clear steps for putting this strategy in place. 

It is important to iterate and improve your strategy during the creation phase and as part of an ongoing effort to maximize its effectiveness. 

This template is split into the following sections:

1. Preparatory research tasks
2. Writing and structuring the document
3. Improving the document through revisions
4. Formulating a way to implement the strategy

Throughout this process, you can use features like task assignments to delegate responsibility for individual tasks to those who may perform those duties best. 

There are form fields and widgets within the tasks in order to share information and keep important information stored within this master process. 

Utilizing form fields, assignments, and dynamic due dates for tasks will allow this process to run smoothly and facilitate a well-formulated strategy.

To get started, add this template to your Process Street account, edit the template as needed, and then run as a checklist. 

Use the form fields below to record any useful information about this checklist.

To review your company's performance, you can look at a financial overview of the company and review previous assessments of performance targets. 

This is a good opportunity to gather all the necessary documentation to inform the rest of this process. 

Reach out to different departments to gather a high-level overview of their performance vs KPIs or OKRs. 

Provide any notes in the form field below.

To understand your performance and how well your product is doing in its current available market, it is important to understand your competition. 

You might ask questions like:

• What proportion of the market does competitor x hold?
• What are the value propositions of our competition?
• What are the feature sets of our competitors' products?

You can see a short guide to competitor analysis here: How to Do a Competitive Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

Related Process Street checklists include:

• Sales Competitive Analysis Checklist
• Company Research Checklist

Use the form field below to record any high-level notes or conclusions.

This may be data your company has collected itself or data which has either been bought or was already in the public sphere. 

Third-party research should always be considered carefully:

• What was the methodology used in the research?
• Who paid for the research?
• How did this report access the information it presents?

Use the upload field to provide evidence of existing market research data.

A SWOT analysis measures the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats which apply to a business. 

If you want to read more about how to run an effective SWOT analysis, read this post: SWOT Analysis Template: What, How, & Why?

To run your SWOT analysis, you can use this Process Street template: SWOT Analysis Template

Upload your SWOT analysis below.

There are probably many products you would like to build and many extra things you would like to add to your existing products. 

However, you are limited by your available resources. 

Use this step as an opportunity to see what may be feasible. This could include questions like:

• What is our available cash balance and what does our cash flow look like for the next 5 years?
• How much more factory space can we expand into before needing to fund further construction?
• Would we need a new warehouse to accommodate a further product line?
• How difficult would it be to scale up our sales department to ensure demand meets a cost-effective level of supply?

Provide some high-level notes in the form field below.

This is a C-Level question pertaining to the overall strategy of the organization: What are the goals of the organization?

Any new product, or new effort applying to an existing product, must be in line with the organization's overall goals. 

Use the form field below to document your primary goals.

A lean prioritization matrix helps you understand your ROI in terms of value gained from effort expended as applied to a single project. 

This can help you understand whether 1 project may take up the energy of 2 projects, yet result in less value than the 2 combined. This could show, perhaps, that the higher initial value of the first project is less preferable than substituting that project for 2 smaller initiatives. 

To understand more about lean prioritization matrices, read this article: Value/Effort Matrix: Lean Prioritization for Product Managers

Upload your lean prioritization matrix below.

It's important to gain team approval on your initial research efforts in order to avoid wasting future time. If some of your figures are incorrect or you are missing data, then your final report will be based on misunderstandings.

Develop a template for your report. 

You can read here about how to construct your document template: The Straightforward Guide to Product Strategy (With Templates)

Or you can find some document templates here:

• Software Product Strategy Template
• Sample Product Innovation & Technology Strategy PDF Template
• Product Strategy Template for Agile Product Managers
• Sample Strategic Business Plan

Use the form fields below to link or upload your templates

Your vision will pull together your previous research and outline your goals. 

You will include the conclusions based off the findings of research efforts from:

• Third party industry insights reports
• Competitor analysis reports
• A SWOT analysis
• Lean prioritization matrix

It is in this section that you will determine the goals and purpose of this new strategy.

There are a lot of things which need to be done for the product strategy to have been fully implemented, not limited to but including:

• Product research
• Product prototyping
• Product development
• Product testing
• Product accreditation
• Product launch
• Product assessment
• Product improvements

How will these get done? When will these get done? In what order will these get done? What other efforts will be required to support them being done?

This section should address these issues and provide a working conclusion to guide implementation.

In this section, you will outline in detail how the product development will work. 

This section concerns the minutiae of the tasks, including brief time estimates for different activities. 

This shows that the macro predictions are based upon micro analysis.  

To achieve the goals of the product strategy, multiple initiatives will be needed. 

Some of these initiatives will be related to the development of the product while others may be more focused on supporting business operations and infrastructure. 

Outline what initiatives will be needed and answer the following questions for each initiative:

• What is the purpose of the initiative?
• Who is responsible for the initiative?
• How will the initiative be approached?
• What will be done to achieve the initiative?
• What is the end result of the initiative?
• How does the initiative contribute to the company’s success?
• By what metrics can the initiative be judged to have been a success or not?

Upload your product strategy report first draft in the form field below. 

You can use the email widget below to send the report to your team. 

Take the feedback of your team and use it to improve your product strategy.

Use the form field below to provide a high-level overview of what changes you have applied to the first draft. 

Upload or link to your completed product strategy below.

Prepare a summary document which can be used to inform the wider organization of your product strategy.

Use the form fields below.

Present the product strategy to other key decision makers within the organization. This could be other C-Level employees or it may be the board. 

Gaining approval of the other leaders is the first step to ensuring all departments are pushing in the same direction. 

Make sure to send the summary document of the product strategy to everyone in the company. 

Keeping everyone informed of high-level decision making helps to foster a sense of community and ownership within an organization. It helps workers understand how their efforts contribute to broader company goals. 

Take the time to go around the organization to meet with the teams who will play a role in the implementation of the new strategy. 

You can explain to them what they need to do to help make the strategy successful, while also listening to any concerns which they may have. 

This can help you better prepare for tackling obstacles before they arise, and it will likely result in greater buy-in from the teams. 

• Software Engineering Institute - Formulation of a Production Strategy for a Software Product Line
• Roman Pichler - Elements of a Successful Product Strategy
• Karl T. Ulrich and Steven D. Eppinger - Product Design and Development (2000, Chapter 3) [accompanying teaching materials]

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