Product teams need context in order to best solve problems for the business autonomously

The whole product team needs to understand the customer needs and business objectives.

This context is needed for product teams to be really empowered to solve business problems with autonomy. Product teams have to solve problems, not just deliver features and they need this context to do it well.

They can get it from:

• the product vision – where do we ultimately want to get as a company? (this is different from the company's mission, though!)
• the product strategy – how will the company get there in terms of product? (e.g. get product/market fit for one segment first, another next etc.)

Vision inspires. Strategy tells the team how we'll get there, it's more focused.

Teams can then be given business objectives. With the necessary context, they can go and discover the right product/solution to solve those and deliver on them. But they're accountable for solving the problem/objective, not just delivering the feature.

Tags: product management

Resources: Cagan – Inspired