 All right, so before we start a little bit of background about myself, I'm an electronics engineering based product manager and I'm doing product management in B2C area for about 10 years now. So after graduation, I have started my journey as a product specialist in a CCTV and access control systems company in Turkey and continued as a product manager in an electronics and a white goods manufacturer again in Turkey where I was mainly doing product management on hardware products. And after that I have been shifted into software product management and I was a global product manager for the internet security applications line at Komodo that is a cybersecurity company based in New Jersey. And that is certainly how I got to learn more on the global aspects of product management and made my way to Amazon and work there as a senior product manager at international technologies division for about two years and a half. And today I am working as a senior product manager at Spotify within personization mission. So of course throughout the years I had learnings about how to develop an effective strategy and today I'm looking forward to sharing these learnings with you. Alright, so let's start by reminding ourselves about our challenges as product managers. So product people are there to figure the most important problems and this is not that easy. And most of us know the theory well but still can't apply it to the daily basis at work. Under communicated strategies within big technology companies often brings up the reality of the application of initiatives in different departments or it leads to unnecessary product requirements in road maps and brings out unclear north star metrics for missions and as a result also and not so clear prioritization framework and that is how you kind of lost your ability to say no at times. And losing the ability to say no is very critical. This is the worst for product people as there are a million good ideas out there but perhaps there is one that you should focus on for the needs of your target customer as Steve Jobs also once said innovation is actually saying no to 1000 things. Okay, then how we're going to know what to say no. Well, to my experience it is tightly bonded within the strategy. So with the help of product strategy, you can definitely identify what is critical for your product so that you can make educated decisions. All right, so before diving deep into why we need strategy, let us first discuss what a strategy is. So if you check the dictionary, it is a plan of action designed to achieve a long term or overall aim. Indeed, whatever the goal is, your strategy is how you're planning to go about accomplishing that goal. So in this talk, we are focusing on product strategy, which is mainly about how we make the product vision a reality and create that bridge that will show us the path to take. So it's like driving a car in a road trip from CTA to CTV and planning out the whole journey and which path you're going to take, how much gas you need. And of course, you will need to make decisions on the way and maybe change plans if necessary. Say if there is a roadblock or a significant weather change or etc. Why we need strategy? So first, we need to convey a message for the inspired vision, right? So generally teams have their vision statements and this has to be shared in order to do what it's meant to do. And in order to do this, you need to communicate this vision with the rest of the company and with the rest of the teams in the companies. And certainly you want them to believe in it and you want them to continue spreading that message. That wouldn't be possible with your vision statement only because it does not tell the full story to convey that message or for someone to believe in it. Simply, the strategy will increase the trust. It will capture the minds and for the passionate ones, sometimes it will capture the heart. So it will help you to increase the awareness within the company and for sure within your team. Also, a strategy will give the direction and establish priorities naturally. In my experience, again, it always helped the team know what they should be working on and what they should be working on first. So with a clear defined strategy, you know in the long run what will bring the most value to the table. So you are not short-sighted. You spend time on the tasks that are most critical to reach your end goal, which helps you to do better strategic thinking and planning because you only have limited amount of time and resources in your team. Okay, so certainly we need to say no quite often, right? So product managers need to make decisions on a daily basis and we are not necessarily building the products hands-on, but we are making decisions to bring up the best value. So the product strategy is the starting point to make better decisions. And when your stakeholders come with frequent requests that does not support your strategy, you simply say no at that point. Another reason why we need strategy is for sure it helps with communication and keeps the team and the whole stakeholders aligned. So we as product managers do not want to be stuck with a virtual goal locked in our heads, right? We want to communicate it. And once you recognize the need to derive the strategy and start planning, you have an important role of becoming the catalyst for facilitating the buy-in and getting commitment of your leadership team and creating alignment inside and outside of your team. So a clear and well-defined strategy has the power to get everyone on the same page. Okay, now we understood the importance of the strategy. Next, let's dive deeper into how we can create one. So there are different frameworks for different proposals to create and derive some focus on cross-functional alignment, while others focus on driving a value proposition to be a competitive advantage. You can basically research and learn more about them, but today instead, I want to focus on talking about the basics, the building blocks of a strategy, which is important to think about, to structure your thinking and to have a solid understanding about certain steps of creating one. So we could cluster the thinking, the steps into three parts. So first, we will talk about data collection, and next is planning. And finally, we will talk about the communication piece. So for data collection, it is important to start with why. So always think about your customer points, because you cannot be everything to everyone. So considering you're invaluable for your target customer, and of course, that would also support the company goals. And in every step of decision-making, try to be customer obsessed. It is certainly not only the end users, it might be your internal customers as well. So if you're working on a platform product that would be thinking about the teams that are using your platform, and this approach will help you figure out what is most important to your target customer, and plus to the company. So once you figure out the most important problems, it is also important to let them with data points, right, or with some insights. This can be quantitative or qualitative, but some sort of data that is enough for you to wet that problem area. You can work with your UX researchers, or get help from your insights team, or you can get your hands dirty and dig in the data sets that you know of. And next, it will be doing some analysis, considering the environment, understanding the major players, and also you may want to analyze the gaps in the market and see if you can address them. So once you have enough data and do your research, now it is time to start talking about the planning piece, putting things together, putting the insights together. So it is important to understand what you are optimizing for at this stage. Think about company goals and see what would be your North Star metric to start testing this strategy. I cannot hear. There should be always a continuous improvement cycle for everything, right? You just need to start from somewhere, test it, improve it, or change it if necessary. So once you have your North Star metric in a framework for prioritization, then you can certainly consider listing up the problems and try to cluster them into strategic pillars. And from there, you can put together your game plan. And note here, a vision does not change that frequently. What is dynamic is generally the strategy itself. Okay, now you have your strategic pillars and the problem areas. Next it is time to communicate it. So it is clear that a strategy does not exist if it is not discussed anywhere, right? You need to constantly and repeatedly communicate it with your team, with your stakeholders, and with leadership so that you start collecting feedbacks and bring out strategy that not only covers the problem area that your team and you are focusing on, but also touches important areas for other teams that you will need to work on later. So that is particularly important if you are doing a cross-functional project. This is when you can get commitments from them. By the way, the communication can be done via a deck or a document. Some would be interested in seeing more visuals. Some would be interested in reading the details in a document. So it will be your responsibility to smell the room and find out the best artifact to drive the communication piece. But whatever the artifact you are using, you should make sure to follow up on the feedback that is given and address them if possible. If not, let them know with the facts on why they can't be addressed, and that way you will create the buy-in. And before diving into the execution, it is really important to ensure all decision-makers and stakeholders agreed on the strategic plan. Okay. So we created the strategy, but somehow it did not develop the huge impact as you expected, or you are still having the same challenges. Okay. It might be a case that your strategy is not effective. Let's now discuss how we can create an effective strategy and what we should focus on. So an effective strategy needs to focus on pain points of your target customers. Understanding your target customer is really important. You don't have the resources to fix all the problems of every other user. So while doing that, you might want to remind yourself the goal of the business. Try to identify if the goal is monetization or engagement or acquisition of new customers. And try to tie them up with the problems that you find out. And try to come up with solutions that are hard to copy in your competitive environment. Let's take the example of Spotify, for example. While developing the strategy, it is important to tie the problem areas with the focus areas of the future, which would be the best blend to get to see what to focus on. So next, an effective strategy needs to be comprehensible. So executives and everyone else in the room should grab some understanding from your strategy. So pay attention not to use any jargon. You want them to understand. And unless people understand, they can't communicate it on behalf of you. So try to simplify it as much as you can. A great example here is Amazon's PRFAQ documents, for example. In these documents, one crucial method is to keep it simple, not to use business or technical jargon and look from customer perspective while you think about the end state. So that way, you can make it easy to understand. And here, a nice book about creating structure in thinking and writing is from Barbara Minto, the book called The Pyramid Principles. So I really, really recommend you to read it. And next is the flexibility piece. So make it flexible and easy to change. In order to create more adaptable strategies, you simply need to come up with bigger goals. Said that your North Star will always help you to connect the dots of today and tomorrow's vision where you can change the path and adapt changing situations. To leverage innovation and maintain control over your current strategy implementation, try to develop a process to evaluate changes, barriers or any opportunities that might arise. Who will make the decision that may pivot your strategy's focus? What pieces of the strategy are non-negotiable? So answering those kinds of questions upfront can allow for clarity during the execution as well. It is very important to stay in the learning zone and not stuck in comfort zone or getting the panic zone. You will need to develop an approach to continuously learn from the failures and adapt accordingly. So it should be the continuous improvement look that you are in. Next piece is about the communication. So most of the experienced product managers that know the dynamics of the business and the market tend to come up with this highly inspired vision and strategies, but then sometimes they forget to go outside of their mind and talk with their prospects and their customers. So you should look for diverse opinions to be able to create that winning strategy at the end of the day. So try to bring more eyes to your work and improve accordingly. OK, next you might want to think about the deliters. I'm sure you might have heard the Kano model where you come up with three clusters for product features being basic satisfiers and deliters. While basics are the features that customers expect from a product, the satisfiers are the ones that are not absolutely necessary, but they increase a customer's enjoyment of the product or service. The deliters are the surprise elements that can really boost your product's competitive edge. They are the features that customers don't even know they want, but are delighted with when they find them. So with the help of a deliter, you can innovate opportunities and boost your strategy to become more effective. And that way you would also have a differentiator and come up with a unique value composition that would help create the products that customers love. But sometimes this is also a bit tricky because the deliter should be really focusing on, again, fixing a problem or driving some sort of an opportunity. So I think it is really important to think about in what ways is this deliter making life easier to ensure that it's creating a unique advantage. And note that the deliters doesn't cause any dissatisfaction because customers aren't expecting them, but then you might need to put more effort into letting the customers understand why it is a value for them. All right, last piece is about making it measurable. So try to tie your strategic pillars into some strategic goals that will help you identify the metric to follow up and then will help you experiment your hypothesis along the way and checking the results. You should be quick to make strategic decisions and pivot when necessary. And you want to pivot a hypothesis and continue testing. So do not jump to the solutions and always stay skeptical and never forget the power of testing and learning. OK, to sum up, stay focused and believe in your proposed once you develop a solid strategy, continue to say no. Next piece is do not fall in love with your strategy, measure it and check the results and analyze it continuously. And finally, never forget everything should be flexible. And adaptation is really, really important. I think with the pandemic, we also understand once again that the things can add up to the changes easily are the survivors of tomorrow, right? So to close out, I want to talk about a short story. So on New Year's Day in 1962, the Beatles performed 16 songs in one hour at the Decca Records Studio in North London. And they hoped for a recording contract. Instead, they were advised that guitar groups were on the way out and they were rejected in a favor of a local band whose travel expenses would be a lover. So having a strategy can help us with this mental modeling. And imagine if Decca had at least said we believe guitar music is on the way out and stabilization model in mind or nothing short term and long term, try to assess the opportunity analysis for Beatles, things would be different for them, right? So you don't want to miss your Beatles opportunity. With that, I will say thank you for listening and I'm wishing you all the best in your own adventures.