--- title: "Best Product Strategy Resources List" description: "The product strategy essays, a book, a podcast and videos Builders Camp's Product Strategy bootcamp curates for members, with a note on what each one covers." canonical_url: "https://builderscamp.com/guides/resources/best-product-strategy-resources-for-product-managers" date_published: "2026-09-16" date_modified: "2026-09-16" author: "Andre Albuquerque" publisher: "Builders Camp" guide_class: "resources" --- # Best product strategy resources for product managers **TL;DR:** This is the product strategy reading list Builders Camp's Product Strategy bootcamp curates for members, spanning vision and mission frameworks, prioritization methods, a strategy book, a podcast and two videos, each with a note on what it actually argues. It draws heavily on Silicon Valley Product Group's writing and on the Product MBA's own closing module, Product Strategy and Roadmapping. ## Why product strategy matters for product managers A roadmap without a strategy behind it is just a list of features in an order nobody can defend under pressure, which is the exact failure mode Builders Camp's Product Strategy bootcamp is built to prevent. Its eight microlessons start with the fundamentals, what the actual components of a strong product strategy are and how they connect to business objectives, then move into harder, more contested territory: how market trends and competitive analysis should actually inform strategy without becoming an excuse for endless research, how to keep a product vision adaptable in a shifting market while staying true to its strategic goals, and how to communicate a strategy so it lands the same way with executives, design and engineering rather than three different messages for three different audiences. The closing microlessons are the ones most PMs skip in practice: naming the most common pitfalls in strategy formulation and execution, and being honest about how to evaluate trade-offs when resources, timelines or market conditions shift without warning, because a strategy that only works when nothing changes was never a strategy. ## What separates a real strategy from a list of goals? - **Good Strategy Bad Strategy**, Richard Rumelt. The clearest modern argument that most "strategy" documents are goal lists in disguise, and what an actual diagnosis-plus-action strategy looks like instead. [Read it](https://www.amazon.com/Good-Strategy-Bad-Difference-Matters/dp/0307886239) - **Product Strategy, Overview**, Silicon Valley Product Group. A grounded definition of product strategy from Marty Cagan's group, useful as a baseline before reading more opinionated takes. [Read it](https://www.svpg.com/product-strategy-overview/) - **Product Strategy, Insights**, Silicon Valley Product Group. A companion piece going deeper into how strategy decisions actually get made inside strong product organizations. [Read it](https://www.svpg.com/product-strategy-insights/) - **The Alternative to Roadmaps**, Silicon Valley Product Group. An argument for anchoring teams on problems to solve rather than a fixed feature roadmap, directly relevant once you have a strategy and are deciding how to communicate it. [Read it](https://www.svpg.com/the-alternative-to-roadmaps/) - **Lessons in product leadership and AI strategy**, Tamar Yehoshua, Lenny's Podcast. Yehoshua, President at Glean and former CPO at Slack, on how strategy holds up across Google, Amazon and Slack specifically as AI reshapes what a product even is. [Watch it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoSeOltKqQk) ## How do I set a vision and prioritize against it without guessing? - **3 Key Parts Of An Effective Product Vision**, Reforge. A structured breakdown of what a vision statement needs to actually do work, not just sound inspiring. [Read it](https://www.reforge.com/blog/product-vision) - **Product Vision vs Mission**, Silicon Valley Product Group. Draws a clear line between the two terms that PMs often use interchangeably, to the detriment of both. [Read it](https://www.svpg.com/product-vision-vs-mission/) - **Words Before Numbers, North Star Statement Exercise**, John Cutler. A practical exercise for agreeing on what a team believes drives value in plain language before picking a North Star metric. [Read it](https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-2853-words-before-numbers-north) - **Working Backwards, the Amazon Method**, ProductPlan. Explains Amazon's practice of writing the future press release before building the product, to force clarity on customer benefit early. [Read it](https://www.productplan.com/glossary/working-backward-amazon-method/) - **RICE: Simple**, Intercom. The original, still widely used explanation of the reach, impact, confidence and effort scoring model for prioritization. [Read it](https://www.intercom.com/blog/rice-simple-prioritization-for-product-managers/) - **What is the MoSCoW prioritization technique?**, Atlassian Community. A clear explainer on sorting requirements into must, should, could and won't have for a specific release. [Read it](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/App-Central/Understanding-the-MoSCoW-prioritization-How-to-implement-it-into/ba-p/2463999) - **Maggie Crowley**, Lenny's Podcast. A product leader's conversation on how strategic prioritization actually gets decided under real constraints, not in a workshop. [Listen to it](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6q1b9jjCpqE75jLyGmJIfq) - **Masters of Scale, 11 Star Experience Teaser**. Reid Hoffman's conversation with Brian Chesky on designing an intentionally over-the-top customer experience to find the realistic version worth building toward, a useful strategy exercise in its own right. [Watch it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvUI0AdKjKI) ## How Builders Camp teaches product strategy Product Strategy is a two week bootcamp with four live sessions and eight self-paced microlessons, a practical challenge and a certification quiz, sitting in the Product Leadership Track. The same theme closes out the Product MBA's ten week curriculum as well, in its own week 10 module, Product Strategy and Roadmapping. Between the two, the curriculum covers the full arc: naming the components of a defensible strategy, setting a vision that survives a shifting market, prioritizing against that vision with a real framework, and communicating it so it lands the same way with executives and engineering. If prioritization specifically is where your strategy work keeps stalling, our [RICE prioritization framework guide](https://builderscamp.com/guides/other/rice-prioritization-framework) and [product roadmap template](https://builderscamp.com/guides/templates/product-roadmap-template) pick up exactly where this list leaves off. ## Frequently asked questions ### What is the difference between good strategy and bad strategy? Richard Rumelt's Good Strategy Bad Strategy argues bad strategy is usually a list of goals dressed up as a plan, with no diagnosis of the actual problem and no coherent set of actions to address it. Good strategy names the problem plainly, then commits to a specific approach, even when that means saying no to other reasonable ideas. ### Is a product vision the same as a product mission? No. Silicon Valley Product Group's Product Vision vs Mission draws the line clearly: a mission states the purpose you exist to serve, while a vision describes the specific future product experience you are working toward. Confusing the two produces strategy documents that sound inspiring but decide nothing. ### What is 'Working Backwards,' the Amazon method? It is a product development approach that starts by writing the future press release and FAQ for a product before building anything, forcing the team to articulate the customer benefit clearly before committing engineering time. ### How should I choose between RICE and MoSCoW for prioritization? RICE scores ideas by reach, impact, confidence and effort to produce a ranked list; MoSCoW sorts requirements into must, should, could and won't have for a specific release. RICE suits ongoing roadmap prioritization; MoSCoW suits scoping a single release under a fixed deadline. ### How many live sessions does Builders Camp's Product Strategy bootcamp include? Four live sessions across two weeks, plus eight self-paced microlessons, a practical challenge and a certification quiz, per Builders Camp's published curriculum. ### What is a North Star Statement exercise, and why start with words instead of numbers? John Cutler's Words Before Numbers exercise argues teams that jump straight to a North Star metric often skip the harder step of agreeing on what they actually believe drives value, which produces a number nobody can defend later. Writing the belief in plain language first makes the eventual metric more defensible. ## Sources - [Product Strategy, Insights, Silicon Valley Product Group](https://www.svpg.com/product-strategy-insights/) - [Good Strategy Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt](https://www.amazon.com/Good-Strategy-Bad-Difference-Matters/dp/0307886239) - [3 Key Parts Of An Effective Product Vision, Reforge](https://www.reforge.com/blog/product-vision) - [Builders Camp: Product Strategy bootcamp](https://builderscamp.com/bootcamps/product-strategy) ## How this guide was made Researched from Builders Camp's bootcamp, track and masterclass material and the sources listed on this page, drafted with AI, and fact-checked against every source cited.