Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age

by Roman Pichler

A great tool for achieving this is the Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create grid (Kim and Mauborgne 2004). The grid encourages you to identify features that your product does not provide or that it offers to a lesser extent or in an inferior way compared with alternatives. It also helps you identify new and improved features. Let’s build on the example from the previous section and apply the grid to the first iPhone. FIGURE 23: The Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create Grid As Figure 23 shows, the first iPhone eliminated a number of smartphone features that were considered standards or must-haves when the product was launched in 2007. These included different models to choose from, a physical keyboard, and a stylus to write on the screen.26 It also reduced a number of features, such as the voice, the camera quality, and the e-mail integration (no POP and no Exchange support). The iPhone also provided enhanced and genuinely new features.