Crafting the Product Vision
Crafting the Product Vision is the process of developing a clear, inspiring articulation of what the product aims to achieve for customers in the long term. It serves as a guiding star for all product development activities, outlining the intended direction and purpose of the product.
Goal
The goal of crafting the product vision is to create a shared understanding and alignment among all stakeholders, including product teams, on the future state of the product and the experience that it aims to deliver to customers. It aims to inspire, motivate, and guide the product development efforts towards achieving a cohesive and impactful outcome.
Context
Many products are a collection of features and functionalities that evolve over time based on the requirements of different stakeholders, often leading to a lack of clarity and direction. Crafting a product vision helps to provide a clear, inspiring, and aspirational goal that aligns all product development activities towards a common purpose. It ensures that the product team is focused on delivering value to customers and achieving strategic objectives.
Inputs
| Artifact | Description |
|---|---|
| Market Insights | Insights from the analysis of the market and the competitive landscape. |
| Ecosystem Strategy | The high-level plan for achieving the ecosystem vision within the next 1-3 years, providing context for the product vision. |
| Customer Insights | Insights from user research, customer feedback, and support tickets. |
Outputs
| Artifact | Description | Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Product Vision | A succinct, inspiring statement that captures the essence of what the product aims to achieve. | Provides clear direction and motivation for teams, helps in aligning product development with strategic objectives. |
Common bad vision types
A useful diagnostic when assessing your own vision: most weak product visions fall into one of three recognisable shapes.
| Type | What it sounds like | Why it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Money-Focused Vision | "We're going to build a billion-dollar platform!" | Motivating for the owners but doesn't give the team clear guidance on what to build for customers. |
| Technology-Centric Vision | "We'll create the most advanced AI-powered system!" | Interesting and challenging but might not solve real customer problems. The technology becomes the goal. |
| The Vague Aspiration | "We'll revolutionise healthcare!" | Motivational but lacks guidance for people on how to make day-to-day choices. |
Anti-patterns
- Vague Vision: Crafting a product vision that is too broad or vague, offering little guidance or inspiration to teams.
- Mission as Vision: A single-line mission statement that lacks the depth and context required to guide product development.
- Vision by Committee: Trying to accommodate too many perspectives in the vision-crafting process leads to a lack of focus and clarity. The vision ends up reflecting everyone's input and no one's direction.
- Internally Focused Vision: A vision that talks about the bottom line, the technology, or the company's position rather than how the customer's life is improved. Customers don't care about your bottom line.
- Misalignment with Business Goals: A vision that does not align with where the company wants to go risks becoming sidelined and ignored, regardless of how compelling it is on its own.
- Lack of Stakeholder Involvement: Failing to involve key stakeholders in the vision-crafting process, resulting in a lack of buy-in or missing perspectives. Note the tension with Vision by Committee. Involve stakeholders enough to hear their concerns, not so much that the vision becomes a compromise document.