Module 2.3: Product Strategy
Reference Guide
- Time to Complete: 40-50 minutes
- Prerequisites: Modules 2.1 and 2.2 complete
Start this lesson interactively: Type
/start 2 3in the Codex app to develop a complete AI product strategy through guided choices.
Overview
This is the final lesson of Module 2, and it’s different from writing a PRD or analyzing data — it’s about making strategic choices: where to compete and how to win. The scenario: you’re the Gen AI PM at TaskFlow, and your CEO asks how the company should evolve its AI strategy for H1 2026.
Key takeaway: Codex can’t decide strategy for you — only you have the context and judgment. But it can help you research faster, think more rigorously, and pressure-test your choices. AI augments strategic thinking; it doesn’t replace strategic judgment.
The Framework: Rumelt’s Strategy Kernel
From Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt, the Kernel has three parts:
- Diagnosis — What’s really going on? The core challenge or opportunity, grounded in data and the competitive landscape.
- Guiding Policy — What’s our approach? This is where the hard choices happen: where to compete, what to say no to, how to create advantage through tradeoffs.
- Coherent Actions — How do we execute? Specific, reinforcing initiatives sequenced into a roadmap.
Most “strategies” fail because they skip the Guiding Policy — they jump from “here’s the problem” straight to “here’s a feature list” without making real choices.
Step 1 — Competitive Research in Parallel
To inform the Diagnosis, Codex spins up parallel agents to research competitors’ AI strategies at once — for example, Notion AI, Linear AI, and Asana AI. Each agent uses web search to summarize features, positioning, pricing, what’s working, and where there’s whitespace.
Spin up agents to research the competitive AI landscape for TaskFlowStep 2 — Make Five Hard Choices
Strategy is choices and tradeoffs. The lesson presents five strategic decisions, each with three options and no single “right” answer:
- Focus vs. breadth — go deep on one capability, spread AI everywhere, or partner for core AI?
- Competitive response — out-build a competitor, differentiate for your niche, or ignore and focus?
- Pricing & business model — premium AI tier, subsidize to drive adoption, or usage-based?
- Product scope — AI as the product, AI as enhancement, or AI for specific jobs?
- Risk tolerance — move fast and take risks, deliberate and defensible, or fast-follow?
Step 3 — Pressure-Test with a Devil’s Advocate
After each choice, Codex plays devil’s advocate — challenging your decision with tough questions (What if voice gets commoditized? Isn’t an SMB focus just conceding enterprise?). You then either stick with your choice or reconsider. Better to hear hard questions from Codex than from your CEO. This is how real strategy gets refined.
Step 4 — Synthesize into a Coherent Strategy
Codex takes your five final choices and synthesizes them into a complete strategy document structured around the Kernel:
- Diagnosis — the strategic challenge, from competitive research and your situation
- Guiding Policy — your strategic approach, showing how your choices fit together and what you’re explicitly not doing
- Coherent Actions — an H1 2026 roadmap (Q1 and Q2) aligned with your choices
- Critical Assumptions — what must be true, and how you’ll test it
- Competitive Positioning — why customers choose you, your defensible advantages, and risks
The point: your choices should reinforce each other. That coherence is what Rumelt means by coherent actions.
Step 5 — Turn It into Executive Slides with Codex Skills
Skills are specialized capabilities that extend Codex beyond conversation and file editing. The pptx skill reads your strategy document and generates a professional PowerPoint deck — title, executive summary, diagnosis, competitive landscape, strategic direction, tradeoffs, roadmap, success metrics, assumptions, why-we-win, risks, and the ask — complete with charts, tables, and timeline visuals.
Create executive slides from my strategyOther useful skills include xlsx (spreadsheets with formulas/charts), pdf (formatted PDFs), and docx (Word documents). Skills are powerful for transforming and presenting your work.
Dependency note: The pptx skill relies on the
python-pptxlibrary. If it isn’t installed, Codex helps set it up — a good reminder that even simple automations have technical dependencies, just like real PM work.
Going Deeper
Complementary frameworks worth exploring alongside Rumelt’s Kernel:
- SWOT analysis — Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
- Gibson Biddle’s DHM — score strategy on Delight, Hard to copy, Margin-enhancing
What’s Next
That completes Module 2: Advanced PM Work. Next up is Module 3: Vibe Coding — building and deploying a real web app from scratch.
Start it by typing /start 3 1 in the Codex app, or read the reference guide: