.jpg?table=block&id=242a2395-517b-80fe-936e-df30d792175c&cache=v2)
Here are the key takeaways from Tim Herbig’s DL Summit 2024 talk—“How Product Teams Can Connect the Dots of Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery”—tailored for someone starting out in Product Management with a strong design and technical background:
1. Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery Are Interconnected
- Don’t treat strategy, OKRs, and product discovery as isolated practices—they work best when dynamically linked.
- Improving one naturally strengthens the others.
2. Beware of “Alibi Progress”
- Real progress isn’t about obsessing over “correct” processes or templates, but about creating value.
- Avoid getting stuck in routines that look productive but don’t actually move the product forward.
3. Test the Strategy: The “Stupidity Test”
- A good strategy presents a real, meaningful choice. If the opposite of your strategy sounds obviously stupid (e.g., “we will not be customer-centric and will be slow”), your strategy likely isn’t concrete enough to drive decisions.
4. Strategy Should Guide Decisions, Not Just Describe Direction
- Break strategy into concrete parts: narrative (the “why”), playing field (the “who/for whom”), and “how to win” (the “what value/differentiation”).
- A strategy should help the team confidently say “yes” or “no” to opportunities.
5. Product Discovery’s True Value: Reducing Uncertainty
- Discovery isn’t about doing lots of interviews or using all the fancy frameworks. It’s about systematically reducing uncertainties in your product/strategy—especially around which problems are worth solving.
- Don’t fall into “opportunistic discovery”—solving any problem just because you can. Focus on your target audience and strategic objectives.
6. “Informed Conviction” Is More Important than Statistical Significance
- Especially in discovery work, “informed conviction”—a blend of quantitative and qualitative data plus some gut feeling—is the goal.
- Don’t get blocked by the need for perfect numbers before making decisions.
7. Make Your Strategies and Metrics Decisive and Influenceable
- Product metrics should fall within the team’s “sphere of influence”—they should be able to affect them, not just contribute to far-off numbers like revenue.
- Use “metric trees” to show how smaller, team-level metrics lead up to big company objectives.
8. Product OKRs Should Reflect Influence, Not Just Outcomes
- Don’t saddle teams with OKRs that are company-level lagging metrics (e.g., revenue)—give them metrics they can actually move week-by-week or month-by-month (e.g., number of agency clients connecting data sources).
- The right OKRs reinforce and clarify the product strategy.
9. Use Each Area to Unblock the Others
- If you’re stuck with strategy, discovery, or OKRs, look sideways: sometimes the answer is in the adjacent discipline.
- Connecting these three “dots” fortifies your product practice and enables progress.
10. AI as an Enhancer, Not the Core
- AI should be thought of as a tool that enhances your product management practices (IDEATION, discovery, synthesis), not just as a feature or differentiator.
- Focus on how AI supports your domain strengths, not as the “strategy” itself.
Bottom Line:
Real product progress is connecting strategy (what and why), discovery (which problems matter), and OKRs/metrics (how you prove you’re moving forward) into a self-reinforcing cycle. Always focus on value, decisiveness, and what is directly in your team’s influence. Don’t get distracted by process for its own sake, or metrics you can’t move. And remember: practical, evidence-informed decisions—even if imperfect—are what drives strong product teams.