Our 5 Favorite Product Strategy Resources

Praxent experts recommend their favorite product strategy resources for product teams seeking greater clarity and focus on the “why” behind what they build.

A successful product strategy helps teams create products with the user in mind at every step of the design and development process.

We love this definition of product strategy from author and product management expert Roman Pichler in his 2015 post, “What Is Product Strategy?”:

“A product strategy is a high-level plan that helps you realize your vision or overarching goal. It describes:

• Who the product is for and why people would want to buy or use it
• What the product is and why it stands out
• What the business goals are and why it is worthwhile for your company to invest in it.”

7 out of 10 software development projects fail industry-wide, often because companies fail to build what would truly keep their customers coming back. We believe that the right product strategy is usually the answer to product development that pays off.

For inspiration on how to plan like a strategist, check out these five product strategy resources.

Hooked

By Nir Eyal | Product Strategy Resources

Hooked provides readers with the insight needed to build products their users will love. Inspired by user-behavior research studies and practices from today’s major social media platforms, this book teaches strategists what it takes to help users form new habits.

Author Nir Eyal is an angel investor who has built and sold two technology companies since 2003. He has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Design.

Our director of product design and strategy, Deanna Dial, loved reading this book. Her main takeaway:

“This book does a great job of honing in on techniques to make your product more sticky. It’s got useful tips on how to make a product experience memorable and keep users coming back to your product rather than a competitor’s.”

The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design

By IDEO.org | Product Strategy Resources

IDEO presents a genius step-by-step guide that will get you solving problems like a designer. It’s composed to spark ideas about human-centered design and have you thinking more about the people for whom you’re designing.

This is a book for programmers, designers, and innovators who want to improve the quality of their creative solutions. It’s a book for those looking to design to their customers’ needs.

IDEO is an organization committed to human-centered design to improve the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable people around the world. The guide is available in hard copy or PDF through their website.

“This guide explains the overall process of creatively solving a problem. It also provides an in-depth look at various product strategy research techniques.

These techniques are really helpful to product designers and strategists as they search for insights and data that will inform the direction of the product.”

– Deanna Dial, Director of Product Design & Strategy, Praxent

DesignBetter.co: The Essential Guide to the World’s Best Design Practices

By Aarron Walter and Eli Woolery | Product Strategy Resources

DesignBetter.co teaches design best practices through a variety of formats. There are books, workshops, and podcasts created to help designers build better products and remarkable teams. There are handbooks for design and leadership on the home page, and the site offers a wealth of information on product strategy.

Authors Aarron Walter and Eli Woolery of InVision present thoughtfully curated articles inspired by their years of experience running product teams.

Praxent product designer, Victor Rodriguez, raves about this collection of product strategy resources:

“I love the concept of this website. It segments essential product insights into beautifully-crafted novellas.

The authors have woven insights from top product influencers into digestible media that delights and inspires.

Among other takeaways, I learned that product teams need to be effective listeners.

Human-centered design is impossible unless it engages all the people who will contribute to the product work: engineers, marketing, cross-functional people, BTAs, leaders, and individual contributors alike.”

Jobs to Be Done: Theory to Practice

By Anthony Ulwick | Product Strategy Resources

When designing new products, businesses must focus on the “job” that the customer or end user is trying to get done through the purchase of the product.

Only when products are built around the “Job to Be Done” can a business be confident they are meeting user needs.

The theory guides developers and product researchers through the process of uncovering what’s behind purchases:

• Functional motivations: “What do I need to do?”
• Emotional motivations: “How do I feel in the process?”
• Social motivations: “How do others perceive me?”

A former product engineer, Ulwick is founder of the consulting firm, Strategyn. He has written extensively on Jobs to Be Done and outcome-driven innovation.

Our CEO and Founder, Tim Hamilton, shares why this book makes the top of his product strategy resources list:

“This theory provides a practical way of getting to the bottom of the age-old question: What motivates a person’s purchase?

If you want to understand why customers buy certain products and services, you have to understand the circumstances in which they made the buying decision and the goals they wish to accomplish through their purchase.”

Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age

By Roman Pichler | Product Strategy Resources

Strategize, by Roman Pichler, offers techniques and tools for creating effective product strategies and actionable roadmaps.

Product owners, managers and strategists will learn practical tips for:

• Creating inspiring product vision
• Developing product strategies that maximize likelihood of success at market
• Maintaining ongoing product success
• Building agile roadmaps to align stakeholders
• Ensuring smooth transitions from product roadmap to product backlog

>> We’ve got a lot more where this came from! Check out our Resources page for tons of downloads and webinars that you can access for free.

We cover topics ranging from automated testing and ways to prevent software project failure to the Game Changers e-book (how market leaders discover a distinct advantage and make their competitors irrelevant).