Boldare Talks with Aneta Rybka about her role as Product Strategist

Interviewee: Aneta Rybka

Interviewer: Jacek Cygan

What is the role about?

Jacek Cygan:

Hi Aneta. It’s so nice to see you. I know your schedule is tight, so I feel lucky that you found some time to talk. Let’s start with the basics. According to you, who is a product strategist? What kind of needs does this role stem from?

Aneta Rybka:

A PS is a kind of guardian, a guide to the product world. They provide tools and knowledge that help build effective product strategies. They support clients and product teams throughout the whole process of product development, but they don’t impose anything on the team. They just make sure that the product vision is still alive and up-to-date.

But there’s more: for instance, a PS helps teams in creating product metrics, roadmaps, and placing the products in the company portfolio. This role stems from the need to diversify the competences in product teams. At Boldare, we believe that such cross-functional teams bring the most value.

J.C.:

The role is quite new to the market, so I guess as a teenager you weren’t just walking around saying, “Mom, Dad, I want to be a digital product strategist!”

A.R.:

No. I wanted to be an architect. The two roles have something in common, don’t you think?

I’ve always believed that the most interesting things happen on the borderlines between various disciplines. At university, I followed an interdisciplinary program and I think a combination of various disciplines can bring the most interesting results. I’ve worked in a wide variety of business models, from a digital flash sales model, based on flash campaigns in the home décor sector, through a jewelry corporation from Scandinavia, to a coffee company. I used to joke that I raise blood pressure by profession. That’s what the coffee industry does. I was responsible for building e-commerce, in terms of both the department as such and team management, as well as for digital product development.

Product-oriented approach and the FCPD model

J.C.:

And why did you decide to join Boldare?

A.R.:

I would say it was Boldare’s specific product-oriented approach with a strong use of Agile methodologies. That’s what makes the organization stand out on the market.

J.C.:

Can you say more about it?

A.R.:

The product-oriented approach stands in contrast with the project-oriented approach. Some years ago, the project-oriented approach was considered the best way to organize work. But that has changed. Today’s product development consists of short and quick iterations based on the build-measure-learn cycle. We build something, we check how it works, we draw conclusions, we improve the product, and we try to get the best results.

At Boldare, this approach really is at the center of each team. What’s more, our work is based on full cycle product development (FCPD). In this model, the product life cycle is divided into phases which help us organize teams and build products.

J.C.:

Does the FCPD model make work easier for you?

A.R.:

Definitely. Each phase is different. We work in three product stages. The first one is

called problem-solution fit. It’s for the products that are hitting the market for the first time. The next phase is product-market fit and that’s about the right fit with the target groups and values in a given market. The last stage is scaling. Each of them requires different tools, and mindset, so having the division really helps us structure next steps in product development.

The difference between a product strategist and a product manager

J.C.:

We’re talking about the role of PS here, but there are also other similar roles, like product managers and product owners. What are the differences?

A.R.:

The key difference is that a product manager (PM) or a product owner (PO) owns the product vision. In the end, they are responsible for the product and its characteristics. A PS has more of a consulting function.

In pure Scrum the role has no place. There are product owners and scrum masters. A PS however can introduce versatile dynamics to the Scrum team, for example, by being a consultant for the PO in developing the product strategy or choosing tools and frameworks.

Work duties of a product strategist

J.C.:

What is your typical day at work like? What are your duties at Boldare?

A.R.:

Every day is different, depending on what products we’re taking care of currently. But to put it simply, a typical day is filled with meetings, because I connect teams and clients, and other roles in the organization.

Every product begins with a so-called Product Discovery Workshop. As part of this workshop, we aim to discover the product vision and the first steps of product development - basically, how to approach the product. And I’m the one who prepares this workshop, so there is a lot of conceptual work.

The PS also prepares product recommendations, which can have a variety of functions. From the preparation of a product metric, a suggestion of how to work with it, to a 5-year product development strategy. There are plenty of areas to cover.

A product strategist’s toolkit

J.C.:

That’s exciting. And what are the most common tools or frameworks that you use in your daily work?

A.R:

First, I need to mention the business model canvas. I use Strategyzer’s template, but there are a few alternatives, such as the lean canvas, and the Product vision board. Other important tools that we use are product roadmaps. A roadmap is an outline of a path, a visualization of the route that will lead us to the product, that will show us how we’re going to build this product and where we want to get with it. Especially in the scaling phase, we often divide activity into the core product, the set-up for the product, and some kind of market adjustment. Product roadmaps are frequently divided into discovery and delivery areas.

Another tool that we like using is the opportunity solution tree. This is a hot topic in a way in the product-building world now. It’s a tool created by Teresa Torres, a product development guru. It helps identify product opportunities and experiment with them. It’s a great tool and if you combine it with the value proposition canvas, it makes for a brilliant toolkit.

As far as apps are concerned, the basic ones that we use are Miro and MURAL, the collaboration platforms. They’re perfect for online workshops. For every development phase we use different tools. My colleagues from the product-market fit phase would say that they love the pirate metrics framework, the one related to lead generation.

It’s good to have a product strategist - case story

J.C.:

You have been with Boldare for a while now, can you tell us one product story that stuck in your mind, that stayed with you somehow?

A.R.:

Yes. There was this product - a social media app for the US market - and the product vision was to enable users to evaluate fragments of content found online and to verify, with a kind of social wisdom, if they are true or false. Although that product vision was very inspiring, it lacked relevance in terms of user value. Only after the client ran user tests with Boldare did they find out how an average American would use that app.

Thanks to recreating the user path for this product, we were able to understand what functionalities we should introduce in the MVP phase. We had to select the necessary methods for sorting and filtering content and decide which of them could wait. That whole process brought a lot of value and increased the product’s ROI.

The future of digital product roles

J.C.:

One last thing I would like to ask you in regards to the future of product roles. How do you think the roles will evolve?

A.R.:

In the upcoming 5-10 years, product-related roles will grow and the demand for them will increase. There are scores of businesses which went through a digital transformation during the pandemic, they entered the digital sphere. Now they need to structure their work. What worked for them before needs to get upgraded now. That’s why I believe product roles will develop.

If I were to identify one direction of this development I think it will go towards a clear division of product management into continuous product discovery - the area of learning about the product constantly - and building the product vision in an agile way.

So, perhaps the roles of product managers, product strategists and product guides will split into these two tracks: discovery product management and delivery lead. I believe these are going to be the two main directions.

J.C.:

Thank you, Aneta, for this amazing knowledge pill. You’ve helped us understand the role of a product strategist and its undeniable impact on digital product development.

A.R.:

Thank you, Jacek.

J.C:

Thanks to our readers. And see you soon!