Strategy Working Group

Form a cross-functional team of leads to collaboratively create strategy, not just review it

Chandra Janakiraman
An operator's guide to product strategy

Strategy Working Group

"The strategy working group is sort of a small team. It typically consists of engineering, product design and data at a minimum... the PM is driving the strategy working group and the process, but that working group is actually the team that's going to collaboratively create the strategy doc." - Chandra Janakiraman

What It Is

A Strategy Working Group is a cross-functional team assembled specifically to collaboratively create product strategy. Rather than having the PM write strategy in isolation and then seek buy-in, this approach involves engineering, design, and data leads from the very beginning of strategy formulation.

The fundamental insight is psychological: something that comes from you feels more familiar and easier to accept. When the strategy document emerges from collaborative work by the team's leads, there's dramatically less resistance during rollout because everyone sees their contributions reflected in the final output.

How It Works

Minimum Composition:

  • Engineering lead
  • Product lead (PM drives the process)
  • Design lead
  • Data lead

Optional Additions (if available):

  • Product Marketing
  • User Research
  • Operations

Design often represents both product design and user research, so you get the voice of the user even with the minimum quorum.

How They Work Together:

  1. Kickoff Meeting: PM explains the strategy process, timeline (8-12 weeks), and assigns discrete deliverables to each member

  2. Parallel Preparation Work: Each member owns specific inputs:

    • Data: Behavioral insights meta-analysis
    • Design: UXR insights and user observations
    • PM: Leadership interviews, competitive analysis
    • Engineering: Adjacent roadmaps, technical feasibility input

  3. Strategy Sprint: The entire working group participates in the 3-5 day sprint where strategic pillars are selected through collaborative debate and scoring

  4. Design Sprint: Design lead takes the lead, others provide input

  5. Document Review: PM writes the document, working group reviews before rollout

Key Principle: The PM facilitates, but doesn't dictate. The strategy belongs to the working group, not the PM alone.

How to Apply It

  1. Select the right people: Choose the leads who will be responsible for executing the strategy—they need to own it

  2. Set expectations on time commitment: Preparation takes ~4 weeks but can be done alongside day jobs. Strategy sprint requires full focus for 3-5 days

  3. Distribute accountability: Assign specific deliverables with clear ownership to each working group member

  4. Create psychological safety: The strategy sprint involves ranking and debating—ensure people feel safe to disagree and defend their positions

  5. Give design the spotlight: During the design sprint, let the design lead take over while the PM steps back

  6. Don't overload the group: By the document writing phase, the working group has contributed enough. The PM should write solo, only bringing them back for final review

  7. Keep them visible at rollout: When presenting to stakeholders, acknowledge the working group's contributions so everyone sees it's a team output

When to Use It

  • Starting any significant strategy formulation effort
  • When previous strategies have faced resistance or lack of buy-in
  • When you need alignment across engineering, design, and data on priorities
  • When the PM doesn't have deep expertise in all relevant areas
  • When you want to build strategic capability across your team leads

Source

  • Guest: Chandra Janakiraman
  • Episode: "An operator's guide to product strategy"
  • Key Discussion: (00:18:51) - Formation and composition of the strategy working group
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

Related Frameworks

Back to Team Building