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Four key Strategy takeaways
1. It’s a set of choices
2. You work backwards from a client-centric problem
3. It’s fundamentally creative
4. You seek to influence, but recognize you don’t control the Outcome
Planning
Planning, by contrast, is a fundamentally analytical and internal-centric approach to laying out a series of activities.
Planning involves sequencing how you will bring certain internal organizational resources (people, time, software, knowledge, money) to bear in ways you hope will accomplish a seemingly-sensible set of “initiatives.”
Outputs
The result of these planning activities are known as “Outputs” — lines of software code written, interfaces designed, software upgrades implemented, platforms “lifted and shifted.”
The important contrast with Strategy is to recognize *Planning is always within your control*. Perhaps this is what makes it preferred by many in business — there’s a great sense of comfort in focusing on only that which you can control.
If you have a Product Manager title, yet spend all your time in meetings with stakeholders, planning activities, and creating Roadmaps and budgets, you’re really a Project Manager.
Four key Planning takeaways:
1. It’s a sequence of activities
2. It’s Internal-centric
3. It’s fundamentally analytical
4. You are in full control the Outputs you create
Boost Your Product Management Skills Through Strategy, Planning, and OKRs
Michael Goitein
When the retail, operations, and finance teams began to construct the initial Amazon WBR, they turned to a well-known Six Sigma process improvement method called DMAIC, an acronym for Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control.1 Should you decide to implement a Weekly Business Review for your business, we recommend following the DMAIC steps as well. The order of the steps matters. Progressing through this metrics life cycle in this order can prevent a lot of frustration and rework, allowing you to achieve your goals faster.
Working Backwards
Colin Bryar and Bill Carr
By setting a single Objective with only three Key Results to measure it, you can provide the kind of focus needed to achieve great things despite life’s little distractions.
Radical Focus SECOND EDITION
Christina Wodtke
...catch up on these, and many more highlights
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