516: Strategic decision making in product management- with Atif Rafiq
Description
How product managers can move from ideas to action
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TLDR
In this episode, I speak with Atif Rafiq about how senior product leaders approach strategy development and execution. Atif brings valuable insights from a recent PDMA executive workshop where leaders discussed their real-world challenges with strategic decision making and innovation strategy.
Key topics from our discussion:
- Main challenges product leaders face when developing strategy
- A practical framework for exploring product opportunities
- How AI tools can help with strategic decision making
- The importance of early-stage product work
- Ways to improve alignment across organizations
- Real-world example using a subscription service concept
Introduction
In this episode, I’m interviewing Atif Rafiq, who recently led an executive workshop at the PDMA conference, where senior leaders discussed challenges they face, including navigating ambiguity and making decisions with more clarity. In this episode, he shares some insights from that workshop and his experience in product leadership. Atif has spent 25 years working in both Silicon Valley and Fortune 500 companies, including leadership roles at Amazon, McDonald’s (as their first Chief Digital Officer), Volvo, and MGM Resorts. He has developed a systematic approach to problem-solving that forms the basis of his book, Decision Sprint: The New Way to Innovate into the Unknown.
Key Challenges in Strategic Product Leadership
During our discussion, Atif identifies three main challenges that senior leaders face when developing and implementing product strategy:
1. Alignment Challenges
Organizations often struggle to get everyone moving in the same direction:
Challenge Area | Impact | Common Problem |
---|---|---|
Problem Understanding | Teams interpret issues differently | Resources going to wrong priorities |
Stakeholder Views | Departments focus on different goals | Competing objectives and metrics |
Customer Focus | Too much focus on one perspective | Missing business or operational needs |
2. Input and Collaboration Issues
Atif explains that product leaders often struggle to gather useful input and work effectively across teams. Common problems include:
- Meetings that don’t collect all needed information
- Difficulty managing different department viewpoints
- Challenges combining input from multiple sources
- Time pressures that cut short important discussions
3. Experimentation Challenges
While many organizations value testing ideas, Atif notes several common issues:
- Starting experiments before understanding the problem
- Running tests without clear goals
- Weak links between test results and business strategy
- Racing through testing without proper planning
Purposeful Exploration: A Better Approach
In our discussion, Atif introduces “purposeful exploration” – a structured way to investigate and test product opportunities. This method helps organizations find balance between rushing into solutions and getting stuck in endless discussions.
Key Elements of Purposeful Exploration
Element | Purpose | Activities |
---|---|---|
Problem Definition | Get clear about the challenge | Talk to stakeholders, analyze data, study market |
Question List | Identify what we need to learn | Team workshops, AI-assisted research |
Testing Strategy | Check our assumptions | Small pilots, focused tests, data gathering |
Making Sense of Results | Draw useful conclusions | Analysis, recommendations, team alignment |
Real-World Example: Coffee Subscription Service
During the workshop, Atif walked the senior leaders through an exercise to get buy-in for a coffee subscription service at McDonald’s. Three different groups crafted a problem statement related to this idea and then identified key questions they needed to answer. This example demonstrates how to balance different business needs when exploring a new product idea.
Strategic Questions to Consider
The teams identified key questions, including:
Business Area | Key Questions | What to Explore |
---|---|---|
Revenue Impact | Will subscribers visit more often and buy food? | Visit patterns, additional purchases |
Operations | Can stores handle increased coffee orders? | Service speed, staff needs |
Customer Value | How does this work with loyalty programs? | Digital integration, easy redemption |
Business Model | What makes this profitable? | Pricing levels, program guidelines |
Next, each group shared their questions with the others, and they used AI to compare the breadth and depth of the questions.
Key Insights from the Example
- Success depends on getting customers to visit more and buy additional items
- Testing needs to happen in stages to manage operational complexity
- Digital platform integration affects customer adoption
- Program rules must work for both customers and the business
- Workshop participants found they could work much faster when combining team expertise with AI capabilities
Upstream Product Work
Atif emphasizes the importance of early work—the foundation-setting activities before product development starts. He notes that this phase often determines success or failure.
Essential Early Activities
Activity | Purpose | Result |
---|---|---|
Problem Definition | Get clear about the challenge | Shared understanding |
Question List | Identify unknowns | Focus areas |
Team Alignment | Build agreement | Clear direction |
Resource Planning | Ensure enough support | Available resources |
Ritual: An AI Tool to Support Strategic Decision-Making
During our discussion, Atif introduces Ritual, a tool he and his team developed to support strategic decision-making processes. Ritual combines workflow