Habit: Develop a Strategy

October 1, 2020 Wendy-Lynn

This article is an excerpt from my longer piece Habits: Five Product Best Practices Learned at Amazon.

Develop a Strategy

Every PM displays ownership when it comes to their strategic product plan. A quick Google search for Amazon OP1 (Operational Planning Process) will offer up many references to the somewhat involved process of building a strategic plan for the coming year. From inside Amazon, the process seems brutal, but many ex-Amazonians find themselves craving it. The rigor helps the entire team, and all stakeholders, unify around a clarified vision. It makes cutting poor performers and doubling down on the right bet easier.

The Learning

If you can learn to quantify everything and keep up with product metrics, setting a strategic vision will be easier than you think. This is especially true when there are tools (processes and procedures) in place to support the habit.

The Amazon Systems in Support

The OP1 process, Operational Planning, exists as an outright requirement at Amazon. It is drilled into you that it must be done to justify your product development for the coming year. This all teaches not only the best business practices but also proper roadmap planning. Don’t be deceived by the term ‘Operational Planning’ it is a strategic roadmap.

Rules of Thumb

Set Visions and Tenets. The exercise of stating a vision and tenets before developing a strategy helps set boundaries in which to ideate. A vision statement is a declaration of the team’s and product’s objectives. The tenets are a list of principles that guide the team, which make it clear what a team does or doesn’t do while using an inclusive tone.

Ideate Early. Set aside time to ideate with the engineering and design teams long before crunch time. Develop some problem statements and run some brainstorming sessions before you think you need them. Create an environment where coming up with big, crazy ideas is rewarded. This will lay the groundwork for more inclusive planning and bigger thinking.
Learn from Mistakes. Before jumping into the next big idea, take the time to list Hits (team wins), Misses (mistakes) and Learnings (lessons in the gray spaces or the overlap). As a PM documents these, using the ideation sessions as a backdrop, the vision for the coming year will come into clearer focus.