Iterating on Product Strategy - All Things Product Podcast with Teresa Torres & Petra Wille

Listen to this episode on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts

What happens when your product strategy doesn’t match what your teams are learning in discovery? In this episode of All Things Product, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille unpack how to spot when your strategy needs a refresh—and how to evolve it based on real customer insights.
They challenge the assumption that most organizations even have a clear product strategy, explore what makes a strategy actionable (and durable), and offer practical guidance for product leaders and teams navigating discovery-driven change.

You’ll walk away with tools to:
✅ Identify implicit vs. explicit strategy
✅ Use discovery insights to evolve strategic direction
✅ Create feedback loops between product teams and leadership
✅ Measure if your strategy is actually working
✅ Whether you're in a startup juggling shifting priorities or a mature org trying to keep strategy aligned across teams, this conversation brings clarity to a complex topic.

Topics Covered

• What is product strategy anyway?
• The myth of the “explicit strategy” in most companies
• What discovery tells us about implicit strategy
• How product teams influence (and challenge) strategy
• Why writing any strategy down is better than none
• Shifting from top-down to emergent strategy
• The role of product leaders: Think customer interviews, but with your teams
• Balancing long-term macro trends with day-to-day user discovery
• Strategy ≠ roadmap: Keeping your plan for winning alive and adaptive
• Case studies: Intercom, Spotify, and strategy-in-action
• Product teams as strategic sensors: Patterns, signals, and customer segments
• Building strategy into quarterly and annual planning cadences
• Wrapping up: Strategy is iterative—so treat it that way

Resources & Links:

• Follow Teresa Torres: https://ProductTalk.org
• Follow Petra Wille: https://Petra-Wille.com

Mentioned in this episode:

• Roger Martin’s definition of strategy
• Lenny’s Podcast with Chandra Janakiraman, where he shares a framework for developing strategy
• Megan Murphy’s “priming the wall” concept, introduced in her talk at the - MTP Engage Leadership Forum
• 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy by Hamilton Helmer
• Blue Ocean Strategy
• Porter's Five Forces Framework
• Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard Rumelt
• SWOT analysis
• Intercom’s Fin AI
• Spotify

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