Adaptive Path Blog

During the dot.com bubble, I worked with a large technology corporation on a product with a meticulously pre-meditated strategy. The strategy made sense on paper and was a nice antidote to all of the, um, exuberant product strategies popular at that time. The product didn’t take off mainly because it was trying to accomplish too much (think iMovie + iPhoto). Additionally, the product’s strategy was static from conception through launch, which was about a year and a half. This experience got me thinking … when is it appropriate to develop a detailed product strategy in advance, and when is it better to let the specific details emerge during the design process?

Enter the Economist’s Best Business Book from 2004: The Modern Firm: organizational design for business and growth by John Roberts (Oxford Press 2004). Roberts explores the question of predetermined vs. emergent strategy in a case study on the 19th century battle between the Hudson Bay Company and the Nor’Wester Company. The HBC succeeded for many years with a very exacting top-down strategy until, during a time of economic turbulence, the NWC was able to out compete them (briefly) based on a broad strategic direction and by relying on employees to make good decisions. Roberts asserts that in times of rapid change, business performance is heightened when strategy follows organization rather than the other way around.

This concept explains why broad strategic objectives and principles are more valuable for many technology-focused companies making products now. Overly specific strategies and detailed implementation plans *can* become an impediment to success. This doesn’t mean that strategy or planning isn’t important; quite the contrary. As Roberts explains it, the more important role of a product leader is to “set a broad strategic intent that informs and shapes dispersed strategic decision making [throughout the company or team]“. While this concept seems somewhat obvious, in the real world, gauging how much strategic detail to set from the start, and how much is allowed to emerge is often an interesting and challenging jugdement call.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 10:39 am and is filed under Product Design, Product Management, Web Applications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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