Comments on: From idea to strategy http://leadonpurposeblog.com/2009/05/12/from-idea-to-strategy/ Promoting Leadership Principles in Product Management Sat, 26 May 2012 21:41:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: David Locke http://leadonpurposeblog.com/2009/05/12/from-idea-to-strategy/#comment-921 Wed, 13 May 2009 22:41:26 +0000 http://leadonpurposeblog.com/?p=815#comment-921 The notion of idea to strategy isn’t clear to me. It could mean turn the management idea into a strategy. Or, it could mean filter technology/product/service/experience (TPSE) ideas to align the TPSE portfolio with one or more strategies.

A TPSE or offer does not constitute a strategy. Different elements might align with different strategies, as the strategies change depending on the current lifecycle state of each element. Strategy alignment is an many-to-many proposition in a company that has been around for a long time.

In Bartz’s case, there is a queue of TPSE to work through before they stage gate the emerging ideas against strategy alignment. They will probably work both ends towards the middle.

Where product management is new, the product manager will have a portfolio to align. Clamp down on the products coming into the development pipeline. Sort the others out later. Eventually, the unaligned products will find alignment or die. Be careful if you set out to kill the older products, the ones the CEO wrote.

]]> By: Michael Ray Hopkin http://leadonpurposeblog.com/2009/05/12/from-idea-to-strategy/#comment-914 Tue, 12 May 2009 23:33:21 +0000 http://leadonpurposeblog.com/?p=815#comment-914 Greg, you make a good point about Bartz’s new role at Yahoo. She has a tremendous task ahead to realign Yahoo’s products to the market.

Though I did not call it out in the post, I tuned in more to her role at Autodesk (than at Yahoo) where she did focus on product management and moving the right ideas into products and services. Another important point about ideas: many of them are not very good and some are really bad. To succeed you have to hone in on the right ideas and get the wrong/bad ideas out of the way as quickly as possible.

Thanks for the comment.
Michael

]]> By: Greg Glockner http://leadonpurposeblog.com/2009/05/12/from-idea-to-strategy/#comment-911 Tue, 12 May 2009 18:43:32 +0000 http://leadonpurposeblog.com/?p=815#comment-911 Perhaps I’m being picky here, but I don’t think the progression is “from idea to strategy”. Sounds like the goal for Bartz at Yahoo is something like “realign Yahoo products to the market”, with action items including killing ‘space debris’ and formalizing the customer review process. This is the new corporate strategy for Yahoo. New products can spring from creative ideas, but these products need to fit the overall corporate goals established by Carol Bartz and her management team.

There may be many good ideas, but not all may fit Yahoo’scorporate strategy. It sounds like this is what Bartz is trying to rationalize.

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