One time, not so long ago, I got into a vigorous discussion (some would call it an argument) with another product manager about how important product visions really were.
I’m a little embarrassed to admit, but I was taking this perspective:
Based on all the hand waving I’ve seen happen over mission, vision, and purpose in corporate speak, I’d become quite skeptical of the usefulness of the vision concept.
I’ve since changed my perspective.
Why Product Vision is Important
Product vision is one of the least understood, but most essential concepts for successful product efforts.
Many people talk about needing a product vision, but because the concept is so lofty, they have difficulty figuring out how to create one and what to do with it once they have it.
That’s unfortunate, because as I’ve found out a well-crafted product vision sets a product team up for success in their product efforts.
To explain further, here’s an excerpt from one of this topics’s resources:
An aspirational product vision that focuses on big wins can completely transform a company and set them up for success for years to come. A detailed product vision can drive team alignment and increase the excitement from leadership in your ideas. And finally, a user-centric product vision makes sure that your decisions actually benefit your users, and ensures people will actually use your product.
reforge.com
A good product vision keeps your product team focused on the long-term, helps align your product team’s decision making, and helps you get leadership buy in.
To get a useful product vision, you need to be intentional in how you create it and communicate it.
3 Key Parts of An Effective Product Vision
As a product person, bold product visions are one of your key tools for generating impact and creating great product outcomes across your organization.
Most product teams struggle with crafting a product vision because they focus on incremental wins and minor improvements that don’t excite leadership or warrant new resources. Instead of taking big swings, they play it safe. Additionally, they try to keep their product vision vague so that it can change later with new information or data but that only leads to more confusion and misalignment.
So how do you create a bold product vision from nothing? The folks at Reforge worked with Sachin Rekhi, CEO of Notejoy, to outline the three key parts of an effective product vision and explain why you need to be creating a product vision narrative, not just a product vision statement.
How to Create and Communicate Product Vision
In Episode 12 of her Fearless Product Leadership podcast, Hope Gurion got the perspective of five experienced product leaders on how to craft and communicate product vision.
It took her a bit of effort to pull this episode together because many product leaders find product vision….intimidating. Fortunately, she powered through it and collected some great insights from five product leaders and added some of her own thoughts.