When business conditions are fluid and changing, as we uncover fuzzy ideas for the product, we discover more about the factors and variables that affect our business outcomes. Keeping things loosely coupled and flexible can work well in our favor. It can help us to respond to new information better, without being held back by the cost of rework due to choices made previously. If anything, our efforts should be towards getting as much data and upfront analyses as possible. We must think through our options and have a good grasp on the benefits and trade-offs of the options we have, so that when the time to take a decision is nigh, we are well prepared. So, I'm sure we would all agree that in order to make informed decisions better and faster, we need full visibility into all aspects that concern product strategy.

Stakeholders from different businesses and technology functions need to come together to align on strategy. When they do, they must be ready and inclined to share their insights. After all, they have the most visibility about financial status, investment prospects, and the bigger picture. In larger enterprises, where multiple product lines may be spawned, information about budgets, people skills, and sponsorship can influence product strategy. It is quite possible to have frictions between teams within an enterprise, about who owns the product, and who assigns budget and resources. It is also very natural that senior leadership will have to navigate the quagmire of cross-departmental politics and be able to make decisions. The ownership usually lies with them.

A problem occurs when the team that implements a strategy is kept in the dark about these background developments. The general view is that unfavorable or ambiguous business conditions may render the team without direction, affect the team morale, and slow down the team. So, the business sponsors then don't share information that could potentially derail the product, even before it takes off, while misleading the team to chase metrics that don't matter. When data is withheld, partially shared, or shared without context, even the smartest of teams will make suboptimal decisions, based on whatever little they know at the time. However, there is a difference between divulging all details of the political quagmire at the cost of demoralizing the team and divulging enough details to influence the product strategy.

A few years ago, when I was working at a software consultancy company, I was asked to own and drive an internal product targeted at the developer community. Our local office leadership was sponsoring the initiative and gave us a deadline of 4 months to launch the first phase. We knew that a previous attempt at this product had fallen flat. We understood that developers were key to the adoption of the product. A small team of four, we were gearing up to get a buy-in from the developers. We worked closely with them to fine-tune our value proposition. However, every other week, someone from a different department, such as IT security or Tech Ops, would seek to know what we were up to. We started to get requirements from teams which were not even on our radar. By the fourth week, we had no idea how many stakeholders were even involved in the success of the product.

The local office leadership recommended that we get all the known stakeholders together and facilitate a discussion and alignment around the vision for the product. That meeting, unfortunately, ended by being more about pacifying upset stakeholders than about defining the product strategy. We finally did manage to carve out the strategy. Some stakeholders were still hesitant to align on the functionality outlined in the high-level roadmap. While we, the implementation team, were worried about this lack of alignment, the local leadership seemed unconcerned. So, we started to work on the pilot product. We also started to sign up an early adopter group of developers to test it. All this was while we were assuming that this was only a question of alignment on product functionality.

After two months, much to our dismay, the product was scrapped since there was no alignment on budget! All along there had been a tug of war in terms of sponsorship for this product. The local leadership had failed to take the global group into their confidence or partner with them in owning the product strategy. Right from the beginning, the essential aspects of product sponsorship had never been addressed. If anything, that was the riskiest proposition for the venture. We, the executing team, were kept completely in the dark. We had been chasing our tails, trying to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic!

In an evolving business, product management plays a crucial role in aligning product strategy with business outcomes and delivering the best end-to-end experience for customers. When product teams are kept in the dark about changing business priorities, it can adversely impact product strategy and lead to teams wasting time, effort, and resources building products that the business has no plans to pursue. This book proposes a framework to ensure that we understand business drivers and outcomes we want to place our bets on. However, this framework cannot be effective if key stakeholders want to withhold information about business drivers or mislead teams with namesake investments, while actual business decisions are in a different direction. Teams that take a business vision and convert it into a smart execution plan to deliver value, must always be aligned with the business strategy and direction. This visibility on business alignment is possible only when product teams are empowered to be an integral part of the overall business direction, if not the detailed business strategy.

While this is true in organizations with a 'need to know' culture, we can see the other extreme manifestation in startups with small teams, where openness and access to information is highly valued. The manifestation of the problem here is what I'd call 'death by discussions.' This is when everyone in an organization is treated with equal merit and every opinion is to be valued. This is, of course, such a desirable state for teams to be in, but they spend an enormous amount of time in discussions before arriving at decisions for even the most straightforward of things. This antipattern can adversely affect product progress. After all, when you ask me an opinion, I'll give you two. Involving a diverse group of people, with different experience levels, skills, and expertise, which can open up wonderful ideas and perspectives. Yet, there is a fine line between offering perspectives backed by data and those that are just opinions. Even if we discount this, and assume that everyone contributes with merit, and there are five different perspectives, each backed by its own data, the essential question is, who decides? There can't be five decision makers. We can't vote on every decision. Democracy isn't great for every situation. Sometimes, someone has to swallow the bitter pill, and choose to go in one direction.

I remember being in so many such discussions when running my start-up. It took us days to decide on product names. It took us hours of heated arguments to decide whether to showcase our product value proposition in a three-step or five-step framework. It took us months to decide on hiring one person. Voicing an opinion without context or data started to hurt. Everyone was expected to offer an opinion. Not having one was interpreted as not being interested. So, everyone started to share an opinion for the sake of it, and then we debated every little detail till the cows came home.

In both cases, be it the 'need to know' culture or the 'death by discussions' culture, when there is no incentive for decision making, decision makers will dawdle. Decisions will be delayed not for want of additional information or analysis, but because there is no urgency to move forward, and maintaining the status quo seems a safer option. This, I expect, will be the biggest blocker to adoption when it comes to formulating product strategy.

A third problem in the culture of organizations is what happens after a decision is taken. How does the follow-through happen? Is there a commitment to see a decision to its end? Is there a blame game? Do we wait for the decision maker to fail to say, "I told you so?" This culture makes decision makers insecure. They lean upon the theory of Agility and make short-sighted decisions to just get over the current problem, assuming that they can change their mind about it. After all, Agility is being able to respond to change. So, teams should be open to decisions being revoked, but Agility is not about constantly changing our mind. Decision making cannot be arbitrary, and without accountability. Remember, we disagree and commit. Teams have to be empowered to access data and information that will help them to make informed choices and have the confidence that stakeholders will commit to decisions that have been taken.

The larger business strategy has to tie directly to product execution. The Investment Game is not a fun activity. It is about decision makers exhibiting their intent, and thereby opening themselves up for scrutiny. For this, there needs to be a level of comfort in discussing strategy with the teams that execute the strategy. This brings us to the next aspect of team empowerment.