Defining a product strategy

We often pull together the elements of a product strategy in the course of our work, but it’s useful to explicitly bring these together into a definition of the product as this supports conversations with stakeholders, and a shared view across the team.

This strategy summary should typically include:

The context for your product #

• Strategic and policy drivers
• Problem space
• Users and their needs
• Constraints

The plan for your product #

• Product vision
• Goals and intended outcomes
  • What needs are we solving?
  • What does success look like to our users?
  • Why is this product the right solution?
  • What will change as a result of this product?
• Measures of success

Users and their needs #

• Use available insights to understand the needs of users. This may include, but is not limited to, user personas, qualitative feedback, and quantitative behavioural data.

• Use a repeatable framework to understand the fundamental problems the product should solve, such as jobs-to-be-done or storymapping.
• Encourage the team to adopt a hypothesis-driven approach to test assumptions and validate the strategy.
• Ensure that there is an effective feedback loop in place so that ongoing user and stakeholder feedback continues to inform strategic reviews. 

Goals and intended outcomes #

• Create a value proposition canvas to clearly articulate how the product creates value for different user groups. Choose an appropriate framework for this, for instance a theory of change diagram.
• Use scenario planning to prepare for different government policies, sector conditions, and user behaviours.
• Ensure that goals and intended outcomes are defined, and signed-off by stakeholders.
• Regularly refer to defined product goals and intended outcomes, and ensure these are understood by stakeholders and the team.

Last updated: 24 December 2025