Book Summary: Strategize by Roman Pichler
Key learnings + bullet points summary.
Roman Pichler tackles the topic of strategy and product roadmap. He not only gives a high-level overview of what a good strategy and roadmap is, but also presents powerful frameworks and canvases to visualise them.
Key Learning #1: Strategy is a series of assumptions
Whether our strategy is a few sentences summary or a fully-fledged business model, it’s just a hypothesis until verified. Thus, we should approach strategy work the way we approach product work. Treat it as a series of assumptions and devise experiments to test the hypothesis.
At any given moment, we should be aware what’s the riskiest assumption we are making about our strategy and have a plan to test that assumption.
A good tactic is to use timeboxes for strategy validation. Set a limited timeframe, up to 4 weeks, and devise an experiment to test the most critical assumptions. After the timebox, make one of three decisions:
- Plan next timebox, and validate new assumptions.
- Pivot the strategy (and then plan the timebox).
- Kill the idea.
A good practice is to hold regular strategy review meetings to ensure it’s still relevant and the…
