How to Build an Effective Product Strategy: Key Principles and Full-Cycle Approach

What makes a Product Strategy truly effective?

We asked Susanna Ferrario, Product Strategy Consultant at 20tab, who shared her perspective on building strategies that adapt, create value, and deliver sustainable impact.

What is at the heart of an effective Product Strategy?

I believe the heart of an effective product strategy lies in the ability to make conscious and targeted choices, starting from a deep understanding of the problem we want to solve.

Before even talking about features, technologies, or roadmaps, we must pause to make a “diagnosis”: what is the challenge we are facing? Is it an internal company issue? Is it a user need? Is it a market opportunity we can seize?

Once this is defined, two fundamental pillars come into play:

• Where to play: deciding who we are addressing, which market segment we will operate in, through which channels, and in which geographic or industry contexts. This is the choice of the playing field, and it cannot be vague: it must be based on data, attractiveness, and potential.
  
• How to win: understanding how to differentiate ourselves from competitors, what makes our product or service unique, and what exclusive value we offer to customers.

To these, I add a third element I consider essential: having clarity on the end result we want to achieve. A well-defined objective allows us to break it down into intermediate milestones and to guide every operational choice with consistency.

In short, an effective product strategy is one that can clearly answer three questions:

1. Where do we want to go?
2. Who are we targeting, and which real needs are we meeting?
3. How do we set ourselves apart from others?

What role do stakeholders and users play in defining the Product Strategy?

A crucial one. Strategy is, in all respects, a team effort: it doesn’t belong to a single person or to a single business function. To be solid and feasible, it must arise from listening and comparing different perspectives.

This is why it is important to involve stakeholders from multiple areas of the company from the very beginning: marketing, sales, operations, technology, customer service… Each of them has a valuable point of view on the product and the market. It is equally important to map out who supports the project, who maintains a neutral stance, and who, for legitimate reasons, may be skeptical or opposed. Bringing these positions and their expectations to light is a key step in building a shared vision.

But there is another key player we can never forget: the end user. Too often, in defining strategy, we forget that the success of a product depends on its ability to meet a real need. If we don’t intercept a concrete problem, a necessity, or a user desire, we risk pushing the product into the market without generating interest or engagement.

That’s why discovery activities are not an “extra” but an integral part of strategic work: they allow us to gather insights and data that guide choices and make the strategy truly customer-centric.

In a constantly changing context, how do you balance long-term vision and continuous adaptation?

The starting point is always the company vision: the long-term direction we want to move toward. It is rare for this aspiration to change radically; it represents the beacon guiding all strategic decisions.

Product strategy, on the other hand, is a living tool: it must be stable enough to maintain consistency with the vision, yet flexible enough to adapt when the context, market, or priorities change.

I believe in a “dual-track” approach:

• on one side, keeping long-term goals steady (those looking at 3, 5, or more years),
• on the other, scheduling regular strategy reviews (quarterly or every four months), to assess whether initial assumptions are still valid and whether it is necessary to reorient the path.

Operational actions - the ones that shape the roadmap - must instead be monitored and adapted more frequently, especially in dynamic or highly competitive markets.

The biggest mistake we can make is to treat product strategy as a static document to be archived: on the contrary, it is a living artifact that evolves along with the product and the company. The balance lies precisely in combining a clear direction with a constant ability to read the context and react to changes.

What does “building the right product” really mean, and how do we do it at 20tab with a full-cycle approach?

For us, “building the right product” means starting from solid foundations: a clear and shared vision, well-defined goals, and total team alignment. Without this, there’s a risk of developing disconnected features with no guiding thread.

Our full-cycle approach always starts with a question: “What is the final outcome we want to achieve?” Understanding why the client wants to create or evolve a product is the first step in defining concrete goals, which we often break down into sub-goals through tools like the goal tree.

Next, we gather everything we know about the product in tools like the lean canvas. This helps us distinguish between what we know for sure and what still requires validation. It’s an exercise that brings clarity and often reveals missing information, pushing us to start discovery activities to deepen our understanding of user needs or clarify uncertain technical aspects.

A crucial moment is the identification of opportunities: those points where end-user needs align with the company’s goals. Working on these areas ensures stronger traction, the chance to attract early adopters, and a solid foundation on which to grow the product.

After launch, the growth phase begins: we collect feedback, analyze usage data, and guide subsequent evolutions in a data-driven way. In this way, the product not only responds to initial needs but constantly adapts to changing contexts and new user expectations.

At 20tab, we believe that a successful product is born from the intersection of strategy, continuous listening, and the ability to learn quickly from the market.