This workshop turns the product strategy concepts into a set of connected decisions. Using the fictional case below, prepare a recommendation that a business owner could fund, question or reject.
Allow two to three hours for a first pass. The exercise can be completed alone, then reviewed with a colleague. It is a practice activity, not a separately graded requirement for the course assessment.
Download the case and workbook
Use the product strategy workbook, case inputs and worked review notes. The workbook is a Markdown document that can be copied into a document editor. The CSV opens in a spreadsheet.
All organisations, observations and commercial figures in this case are invented for learning. The case deliberately leaves some evidence unresolved. State assumptions rather than inventing additional research.
Use the existing templates for reusable work
The workbook supplies the case questions and calculation tasks. For documents to use with a real team, open the one page strategy, competitive analysis, experiment brief and outcome roadmap templates. Their pages link to the existing Google Docs or Google Sheets versions.
Read the maintenance business case
ColdRoute supplies software for refrigeration maintenance. It is considering a parts preparation service for regional grocery chains. In 100 sampled repairs, 40 required another visit. Reviewers attributed 18 of those repeat visits to missing parts, 12 to specialist labour availability and ten to other causes. The sample comes from two friendly customers and may not represent the market.
The team can fund one substantial pilot this quarter. A national chain is also requesting a complete scheduling replacement. That request would consume the same engineering capacity as the parts pilot, and its commercial terms have not been agreed.
The market model assumes 11,000 stores, with 62 per cent in the target chain segment and 80 per cent of those technically serviceable. Proposed annual pricing is £1,400 per store. Serving costs in the model are £350 per store per year. A typical chain has ten subscribed stores.
Build the strategy and its economic argument
Complete these deliverables in the workbook.
- A market definition naming buyer, user, billing unit and alternatives.
- A TAM, SAM and SOM calculation with periods and assumptions stated.
- A strategy kernel and an explicit decision on the scheduling request.
- An assumption register and one bounded test with outcome rules.
- A contribution and payback calculation, including a price sensitivity.
- A roadmap with a customer outcome, guardrail and review trigger.
For SOM, assume 60 active chain customers at the end of year three, after losses. For payback, use £6,000 acquisition cost and £3,000 initial implementation cost per chain. Explain what the model excludes.
Respond to a change in evidence
After drafting the recommendation, assume a supplier offers a six month data agreement but will not commit beyond that period. The sales team also reports that three interviewed chains would consider £1,200 per store, with no signed offers yet.
Revise the plan to address supplier dependence and pricing uncertainty. Recalculate contribution at £1,200. Explain whether the new evidence changes the next investment, requires a smaller test or leaves the choice unchanged with additional conditions.
Review the work against clear criteria
Check that observations are separated from interpretation, each calculation uses consistent units and the roadmap supports the strategic choice. The experiment should answer a question that could change a decision, with an owner and a spending boundary.
Use the worked review notes after completing the first draft. They provide arithmetic checks and a defensible example response, rather than a single correct strategy. A different recommendation is credible when its reasoning addresses the evidence, constraints and alternatives.