Summary
GRASP is a framework for product cycle acceleration, comprising four elements: Goal, Resource Assessment, Strategy, and Plan. It aims to provide a quick overview of design and development effort, highlighting the importance of resource assessment and distinguishing between strategy and planning. The framework can be used as a complement to existing frameworks like OKRs and Agile, offering a useful perspective in the early stages of product thinking.
What it is
Product thinking is not linear, whether or not we’d like it to be. It’s iterative and it’s inexact.
To be precise about the “inexact” part, it’s using observations and experience to make an educated guess. It’s a bit of logical inference based on incomplete information. (This is neither deductive nor inductive reasoning, but more on that in the near future.) If we had complete information then it would be a post mortem not planning.
In my experience working on hundreds of projects, it can be really useful to have a framework for a quick overview of design and development effort, something that enables a 30,000-foot view. I’ve developed and stress-tested my framework, and used it for everything from the smallest trivial “projects” like making lunch, to large enterprise-scale projects with multi-million-dollar budgets.
This framework has four parts. I use the acronym and mnemonic device GRASP to remember them:
- Goal
- Resource Assessment
- Strategy
- Plan
The goal is the starting and ending point. It can be useful to use the SMART framework. If you’re familiar with other frameworks, then you might prefer to think of this as the objective.
The resource assessment is the element that I see most often left out of other frameworks and in general product thinking. It seems obvious in the example of making lunch. If you don’t have bread or cheese, it’s going to be tough to make a sandwich. Similarly, if you don’t have the personnel, funding, technical expertise, intellectual property, or other elements necessary to your project or subproject, it can be very useful to identify that. Alternatively, you may have opportunities to use hidden, non-obvious, or unusual resources in innovative ways to help your project or subproject succeed. There’s lots of room for untapped creativity in what you bring to bear on a project.
Some frameworks lump the strategy and planning together. I find it’s more helpful to draw the distinction. Often the strategy is solid, but the planning and execution suffer. Sometimes it’s the approach, regardless of excellent planning. Addressing both will be less efficient than revising one or the other, and a solid strategy can be reused. I think of it like chess: you may have direction, intention, and moves ready to go, that is, a strategy, but you still have to string it all together into a series of moves to counter your opponent and deal with the specifics of the particular game.
Why it’s useful
Let’s chase that trivial example. It’s lunchtime, and I need to eat.
- The goal: feed myself, preferably with something quick, cheap, delicious, and nutritious.
- The resource assessment: I have bread, butter, cheese, and an equipped kitchen.
- The strategy: make a grilled cheese sandwich.
- The plan: butter the bread, put the cheese in between, and slap it on the grill.
What if the cheese is moldy? Then we may need a different strategy and plan. Is there peanut butter and jelly?
What if the stove isn’t working? Then we could pivot to a cheese sandwich as a new strategy.
What if there’s no sharp knife to slice the cheese? Did our resource assessment include a grater?
How to use it
I won’t suggest this is a substitute or a replacement for OKRs, Agile, SCRUM, OGSM, Six Sigma, TQM, Kaisen, or other frameworks. But I do think it’s a good complement to them, useful as a quick check-in or a double-check.
Resource Assessment
In particular, try paying attention to available resources in the early stages. Some creative and divergent thinking about unusual people and processes, and the limitations of same, can make a big difference, especially before you start allocating resources.
When you assess available resources early in the planning process, you can establish more accurate project priorities and scope. This involves evaluating factors like project deadlines, client needs, and organizational objectives to identify critical aspects and rank them accordingly.
Understanding resource availability helps determine what’s feasible within your constraints rather than creating plans that can’t be executed. This helps resource allocation and resource planning further down the line, and can lead to more efficient execution and help avoid roadblocks.
Strategy vs. Planning
Strategy defines the shape of the game plan. It’s the method to reach a goal, requiring an understanding of the business environment you’re operating in. In chess, strategy is the logic and sequence of moves to advance the game in your favor. It’s the same in product management and project management.
Planning, on the other hand, provides the specific steps, resources, and timelines needed to execute the strategy—it’s the pattern, scheme, or program that lays out how to perform tasks.
Strategies are inherently more flexible than plans. If a team determines a strategy isn’t feasible, they can adapt it by extending timelines or adjusting approaches. Plans are typically more fixed and structured, making them harder to modify once established. When you hit a roadblock or a project stumbles, it can be very useful to determine if it’s the project strategy or the plan that’s not working.
Example: Quick Sanity Check
The GRASP framework can serve as an effective sanity check during early project planning by providing a structured way to evaluate the fundamentals of your initiative before committing resources. Here’s how you might apply it:
Goal Validation
Start by examining whether your goal is clearly defined and achievable. Ask yourself:
- Is the goal specific enough to guide action?
- Can you measure success?
- Does this goal align with broader organizational objectives?
Or use the SMART goal system.
If your goal is vague or misaligned, it’s a red flag that requires addressing before proceeding.
Resource Reality Check
This critical step helps identify potential roadblocks early. Assess:
- Do you have access to people with the right skills?
- Is your budget sufficient?
- Do you have access to required technology, tools, and/or materials?
- Are there time (or other) constraints that might impact feasibility?
The resource assessment is particularly valuable as it’s the element that I see most often left out of other frameworks and in general product thinking. Identifying resource gaps early can prevent committing to unrealistic projects. Creative thinking about resources can make the difference between success and failure.
Strategy Evaluation
Examine your approach to achieving the goal:
- Does your strategy leverage your available resources effectively?
- Is it adaptable to potential changes?
- Have you considered alternatives?
Remember that strategies are inherently more flexible than plans, making this a good point to consider multiple approaches.
Plan Feasibility
Finally, review your specific action steps:
- Are they concrete and actionable?
- Do they logically flow from your strategy?
- Have you accounted for dependencies and potential bottlenecks?
Using GRASP as a quick check can reveal fundamental issues before they become costly problems. As noted above, it complements other frameworks like OKRs or Agile methodologies. By spending just a few minutes thinking through these four elements, you may discover a different and useful perspective that helps avoid misaligned projects or unrealistic commitments… or reveal new efficiencies.
Example: Balancing Priorities
The GRASP framework (Goal, Resource Assessment, Strategy, Plan) can be effectively applied to address one of the most common product management challenges: balancing multiple demands and priorities. Let’s walk through how a product manager might use GRASP to tackle this challenge.
Goal
The goal is to establish a clear prioritization system for product features that aligns with business objectives while satisfying key stakeholders and delivering customer value. This goal should be specific and measurable, perhaps targeting a 30% reduction in backlog items and a 25% increase in customer satisfaction scores within the next quarter.
Resource Assessment
This critical step involves taking inventory of available resources:
- Team capacity: How many developers, designers, and QA specialists are available, and what is their bandwidth?
- Technical expertise: What specialized skills exist within the team?
- Budget constraints: What financial resources are allocated to this initiative?
- Time limitations: What are the deadlines and time constraints?
- Stakeholder support: Which executives or department heads can champion certain initiatives?
- Existing tools: What prioritization frameworks or software tools are already available?
Strategy
Based on the resource assessment, the strategy might include:
- Implementing a data-driven prioritization framework that weighs customer impact, business value, and effort
- Establishing a cross-functional review committee to evaluate feature requests
- Creating a transparent communication system to share prioritization decisions with stakeholders
- Focusing on high-impact, low-effort features first to demonstrate quick wins
Plan
The specific action steps might include:
- Set up a prioritization scoring system in the product management tool by end of week
- Schedule bi-weekly prioritization meetings with representatives from engineering, design, and sales
- Create a dashboard to visualize the impact of prioritized features
- Develop a communication template to explain prioritization decisions to stakeholders
- Implement a feedback loop to measure the effectiveness of prioritized features
This approach directly addresses what many product managers cite as their biggest challenge – “lack of clear priorities”. By using GRASP, the product manager creates a structured approach to what often feels like an overwhelming task of balancing competing demands.
The framework is particularly valuable because it emphasizes resource assessment, which is frequently overlooked in product planning but critical to realistic prioritization and execution.
Conclusion
Next time you’re in the early stages of product thinking or prepping for a larger effort like interval planning or a retrospective, take a few minutes to think through the four elements of GRASP. You may discover a different and useful perspective.
