02:21
product management
According to Shreyas Doshi, the sense that strategy and priorities keep changing every week is, in at least 50% of the cases he's encountered, actually a symptom of the PM (or group PM/PM director) not having clarified and gotten buy-in on their own strategy with upper management, rather than genuine external chaos.
Usually the shifting of strategies is because of lack of conviction on one strategy.
PMs should spend time clarifying their strategy and getting buy-in on it for their area.
The whole point of creating a strategy is that it becomes a framework for making future decisions.
A clear strategy turns decisions into a structured conversation: evaluate a new customer requirement through the lens of the agreed strategy, and ask whether it's actually important, not important, or whether there's new information that requires amending the strategy.
PMs often blame externally 'shifting' strategy/priorities, but in reality it's frequently because the PM, group PM, or PM director hasn't clarified their actual strategy to upper management.
When that clarification and agreement hasn't happened, upper management seems arbitrary and random because something new comes in and they say 'let's work on this' since they don't have the time or context to figure out the strategy for the PM.
Doshi estimates this clarification failure explains at least 50% of the cases he's encountered, though not every case.
In the remaining 50% of cases, three other situations apply: a dysfunctional environment; a rapidly changing industry (crypto 3-4 years ago, AI right now) that changes strategy due to external factors; or being an upstart trying to unseat a bigger player, which requires reacting to what the bigger player does to seem as big as them.
If that upstart-driven shift of strategy is done intentionally, it's fine.
Senior PMs, group PMs, or PM directors have a high degree of control over the 50% of cases caused by lack of clarification, so that strategies don't keep shifting.
Doshi reframes 'strategy keeps changing' from an externally imposed problem into a locus-of-control issue: the PM's own failure to clarify and get buy-in is presented as the majority cause, putting agency back in the PM's hands.
Upper management's seemingly arbitrary, reactive behavior (jumping on whatever new thing comes in) is attributed not to malice or incompetence but to a lack of time and context to derive strategy for the PM themselves — the vacuum left by an unclarified strategy gets filled by whatever is newest.
The same surface behavior — strategy shifting — is judged differently depending on intentionality: an upstart reacting to a bigger player's moves is framed as a legitimate, even necessary, strategic choice rather than dysfunction, as long as it's done on purpose.
Doshi ties the degree of control over this problem to seniority, implying that senior PMs/group PMs/PM directors bear more responsibility (and have more leverage) to prevent shifting priorities than more junior PMs would.
«usually the shifting of strategies is because of lack of conviction on one strategy»
— 00:02
«the whole point of creating a strategy is that it becomes a framework for making future decisions»
— 00:18
«is it actually important or is it not important or is there new information now that requires us to amend the strategy»
— 00:27
«at least in 50% of the cases I've encountered this is actually what's going on»
— 01:17
«in the remaining 50% of the cases it's just a dysfunctional environment»
— 01:24
«the third one is you are an upstart that is trying to unseat a bigger player»
— 01:41
«so that shift of strategy if it's done intentionally is's fine»
— 01:54
Reception
Viewers found the content practically valuable, engaging with specific points and expressing gratitude.
A tight, actionable reframe of a common PM complaint into a clarification-and-buy-in problem, backed by Doshi's own experience-based 50% estimate and a simple taxonomy of the remaining causes rather than by external data.
02:21