Strategy Laws for Product Managers
Strategy is the smallest set of decisions that, if you get them right, make the other decisions easier — and if you get them wrong, make the other decisions almost irrelevant.
The laws here aren't frameworks. They're observations that keep showing up in the rooms where a roadmap gets argued into shape. They answer questions like: which 20% of work produces 80% of the value? What job is the user actually hiring the product to do? Which features would users barely notice if they worked, and riot about if they broke? When does it make sense to ignore the competition entirely, and when does it make sense to follow them into their own market?
If you're setting a roadmap, prioritising a backlog, or defending a product direction to a sceptical room, these are the seven laws you'll keep coming back to. Most PMs under-use Kano and Jobs-to-be-Done because they feel obvious — until the moment a stakeholder asks why a basic feature is still broken while the team is shipping delighters.
The 7 laws in this category
- Blue Ocean StrategyUncontested Market SpaceMost companies compete on the same things. The biggest wins come from choosing to compete on something different entirely.
- Crossing the ChasmEarly Adopters vs. MajorityEarly adopters and regular users are two different audiences, and most products die in the gap between them.
- Disruption TheoryThe Innovator's DilemmaBig companies lose to cheaper, worse products that improve faster than the big company can react.
- Jobs to be DoneHire the ProductPeople don't buy products. They hire them to make progress in a specific moment of their life.
- Kano ModelDelight vs. Must-HavesFeatures fall into three types — basics, performance, and delighters — and each type pays back differently.
- Pareto PrincipleThe 80/20 RuleAbout 80% of the results come from 20% of the work — so finding that 20% is most of the job.
- RICE ScoringScoring with Four LeversReach × Impact × Confidence ÷ Effort gives you a number — but the number only means something if the conversation behind it was honest.