One way to determine whether you need market research and strategy help is to go through a positioning exercise. Follow the steps I outline in my series on positioning. If you find yourself having trouble answering any of the questions, or even if you have trouble justifying your answers to a disinterested party, you likely need to understand your market better or reconsider the principles of marketing, which are often counterintuitive.
The Goal As a company executive, you want confidence that your product team (which includes all the people, from all departments, responsible for product success) has a sound basis for deciding which items are on the product roadmap. You also want confidence the team is prioritizing the items in a smart way. What Should We Prioritize? The items the team prioritizes could be features, user stories, epics, market problems, themes, or experiments. Melissa Perri makes an excellent case for a " problem roadmap ", and, in general, I recommend focusing on the latter types of items. However, the topic of what types of items you should prioritize - and in what situations - is interesting and important but beyond the scope of this blog entry. A Sad but Familiar Story If there is significant controversy about priorities, then almost inevitably, a product manager or other member of the team decides to put together The Spreadsheet. I've done it. Some of the mos
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