Future London Academy – Product Design Strategy

Product Design Strategy is a five-hour, pre-recorded Future London Academy course for product designers moving toward leadership. It shows how to connect user-experience arguments to planning and business decisions: influencing roadmaps, choosing metrics, running primary research and understanding why some services win in crowded markets.

The instructor is credited as a VP of Product Design and Research.

What you’ll learn

• Get involved in planning and annual planning.
• Prioritise through impact, company values and human values.
• Choose metrics appropriate for the business and create a data portrait using multiple measures.
• Scope primary research and move from field research through synthesis into ideation.
• Visualise a research-based vision of the future user experience.
• Diagnose why services succeed in crowded markets and apply those lessons to a product or service.

Planning and prioritisation

A roadmap is an allocation decision, so design gains influence by entering annual planning early. The course covers how to take part in planning and how to prioritise through business impact, company values and human values.

Metrics and the data portrait

No single metric captures an experience. You learn to choose measures that suit the business and combine several of them into a data portrait, so improving one number does not quietly damage another.

Primary research to vision

The research section moves from scoping primary research through field work and synthesis into ideation, then shows how to visualise a research-based vision of the future user experience that executives can act on.

Winning in crowded markets

The final part diagnoses why certain services succeed in crowded markets and applies those lessons to your own product or service.

What’s in the course files

The course files include the pre-recorded video lessons and supporting PDF materials.

Who Product Design Strategy is for

The course suits mid-level and senior product designers, design leads and researchers who want more say in product strategy. How far the methods change a roadmap still depends on your organisation’s decision-making.