Strategy at a Human Scale

Focus on manageable iterations, not stakeholder proclivities.

Product Owners are often leading discussions around strategy, championing their development. Navigating these conversations can be tricky with many stakeholders and personalities. Harder still, Product Owners must reconcile various approaches — often in real-time — during strategy meetings.

I’ve noticed there are two predominant voices during strategy development; the Visionary and the Tactician. Watching for and recognizing these voices is crucial as both can be unproductive when shaping an actionable strategy.

Visionaries and executives talk about far-off long-term results. But long-term outlooks are often too speculative to be actionable. Discussing big results overlooks the work required to get there. It deprives the team of clear actionable goals and the time to discuss the approach. It makes it harder to have an honest conversation about the hard work ahead.

Likewise, Tacticians dive into small short-term changes which are a distraction to shaping a strategy. One, because minutia will distract from the bigger goal or win. Also, because short-term negative consequences are nearly always part of change or progress. Changing a UI will frustrate users. Winding down a client relationship will make someone feel bad. Etc…