AMA: Flexera Chief Product Officer, Becky Trevino on Product Vision

In 0-1, the vision is a deal breaker. If you cannot sell this, you cannot move forward with getting the funding to really establish product market fit (PMF). Here vision is required not critical. It's the single most important thing you need to get right. In mature products, you have to be more careful. The original vision established (PMF) and now you need to keep true to those jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) while also building toward adjacent JTBD where you and win in the future. Here the doc will hel ...Read More

If you're new or are attacking sacred cows in a vision update that is required, you need the org to buy into the change. It starts with you getting your thoughts together. I like building a doc answering fundamental questions such as "Who are we?", "What is our mission?". As you build this, you get your thoughts together and can then start sharing these. When you now you're going to change something big, I'd call it out. You may build this into a separate doc later but it's important to go deep ...Read More

I start with the doc. The overall doc with a focus on: Who are we? What is our mission? Why does this mission matter now? Who do we serve? Who are our Personas? and What Value do we give them? What is the problem we solve? Why do we solve this problem better than anyone else? What do our customers need from us that we're not giving them? What market dynamics are changing are space?Once I've answered these, I create a doc and share the doc. Now, I use LLMs to help me sort through ideas and see pa ...Read More

To me, it's really a deep dive into Jobs To Be Done. And then there are the deep questions you need to ask here which should come from the Company Mission and Vision --> 1) Who am I as a company?2) What am I very good at?3) If this is an overall company vision, you should align on #1 and #2 in a very big way. 4) If this is a product vision for your specific product line, you should look at the overall vision and see how it ladders up. 5) For both #4 and #5, it's critical to focus on your core ...Read More

This depends on your role and power in the org. If you have a long tenure and are respected internally, you can write it, pitch it, and sell it as the new vision. If you're new or are attacking sacred cows in a vision update that is required, you need the org to buy into the change. It starts with you getting your thoughts together. I like building a doc answering fundamental questions such as "Who are we?", "What is our mission?". As you build this, you get your thoughts together and can then s ...Read More

I'm recently updating our vision. I believe you should look at it at least once a year - especially right now during the AI revolution. In the past, I've relied on a major vision update every 3 years. That said, I think this is more about where you are in role. If you're new to a role, the time to look at the vision is the year you are starting the role. The big thing you have to do in year one and confirm if the vision remains or needs to change. At Flexera, I realized that the vision in my fir ...Read More

My answer to product strategy depends on where I am in the role. If I'm new to a role, I tend to look at the existing product strategy and determine what's working and what is not. In particular, I tend to look at the disconnects between the vision and the strategy. In general, I start with a 3-5 year product vision. Then I use a two-year product strategy to determine how to close the gap between where we are today and how to get to the vision. From there, the roadmap becomes way more obvious to ...Read More

When engineering resources are minimal, I really tend to follow the money or follow the vision. The work we're doing has to either provide immediate customer value that can translate into helping our sales teams to meet numbers and/or retain customers. OR it has to be significantly meaningful in driving our vision forward for future revenue to come. To make this actionable, we look at workload prioritization in three categories: Innovation, Enhancements, and Maintenance/Support. We define percen ...Read More