I once spent weeks preparing an extensive Product Strategy. I had looked at the market, analysed competitors, refined the positioning and checked every angle against the broader business strategy. When I finally finished, I felt confident that I had captured the full picture.
The next morning my computer greeted me with a blue screen of death. The local copy was gone. Normally that would not have been a problem, because that is why we have cloud backups. Except this time, for reasons no one in IT could explain, the cloud copy was corrupted as well. It had never happened before, apparently.
So I had to start again. Not replicate it but rebuild it.
What surprised me was how different the second version became. Because I was forced to step back and reconstruct the strategy from scratch, I saw patterns and connections I had missed the first time. The helicopter view returned. I made changes I would never have considered if I had simply edited the original document.
That experience taught me something important: sometimes the most valuable strategic insight comes not from refining your work, but from letting it go and rebuilding it with fresh eyes.
Part of the DNA Insights woven through the book The DNA of a Product Manager.
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