Free tools · Elle Anderson · andersonco.uk

The Product Strategy One-Pager

A product strategy that cannot be expressed on one page is not yet a strategy. Fill this in, then run the five tests below, and expect the conversation it starts to be the most useful part.

1. Where we play

The customer, the problem space, the boundaries. Must name the customers we will NOT serve.

2. The insight behind our bet

What we believe that competitors either miss or ignore. If this line could appear in their strategy unchanged, it isn't an insight.

3. How we win

Two or three capabilities that make us the right ones. Things we do that others measurably don't. Not adjectives.

4. The bets

Three to five hypotheses: we believe [change] for [who] will produce [outcome], measured by [number] by [date]. Every roadmap line must trace to one.

5. What we're declining

Real options someone senior wanted, declined in writing. No refusals means untested.

6. What would change our mind

The evidence that would kill or reshape each bet. Decided now, while nobody defends sunk cost.

The Five Tests

The reversal test. Negate it. If the opposite is absurd, the original was a platitude.
The Monday test. Can a team lead decide something differently on Monday because of this page?
The stranger test. Could an outsider match last quarter's shipped work to this page?
The funeral test. Which bet, if it died, would actually hurt? If none, you haven't bet anything.
The tense test. Count the sentences about what you WILL BE. Strategy lives in what you will DO.

How I run the writing: one author rather than a committee, because a committee tends to produce a truce rather than a strategy. Draft in an hour, then spend the real time on boxes 4 to 6 with the leadership team, because the bets, the refusals and the kill criteria are where alignment is made.