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StrategyProduct5 min read
Customer-driven planning vs strategy-driven
Companies oscillate between listening to customers and following a strategy. Both extremes fail. The middle is harder than either pure approach.
Pure customer-driven product becomes a feature factory shaped by whoever shouted loudest in the last QBR. Pure strategy-driven product ignores the signal that the actual market is sending. Each is a failure mode; the middle path is harder than either.
How to actually balance
- Group customer feedback by underlying need, not requested feature.
- Filter through strategic fit — does serving this need advance the company's position?
- Build the thing that solves the need in a way that fits the strategy.
- Reject the asks that don't fit either, with honesty about why.
What to watch for
If every release feels like a customer request you didn't want to do, you're customer-driven and drifting. If every release feels like a strategic bet that nobody asked for, you're strategy-driven and disconnected. The middle is uncomfortable; that's where the work is.
Listen to your customers, but answer to your strategy. Both alone, and the company starves.