AMA: Splunk Sr. Director of Product Management, Observability, Kara Gillis on Product Vision

First, we should define what a product vision statement is. A product vision statement defines the product's positioning - what we tell ourselves about our product in a market. This is different than messaging - which is what we tell OTHERS about our product in the market. How are these different? Think about what you think to yourself about someone wearing an eccentric outfit in public. Perhaps you think to yourself, "Wow, he is not pulling off that hat" (positioning). You look closer at the pe ...Read More

As a reminder, Geoffrey Moore's product vision template is: For [final client], whose [problem that needs to be solved], the [name of the product] is a [product category] that [key-benefits, reason to buy it]. Different from [competition alternative], our product [key-difference]. I think it would be rude to call out a specific example of a bad product vision. A few signs of bad product vision statements include those that: Change often. I don't think product vision statements should change that ...Read More

TLDR: I use Geoffrey Moore's product vision template to craft an internal statement, which can be used for a compelling public message or "mission statement." A product vision is not typically used for external consumption. You might be asking yourself, what? I thought Apple, Meta, Slack, and Unity had all these quirky and cool vision statements that told me about their mission and products. These are actually corporate vision statements that reflect the brand, rather than merely the product I'm ...Read More

As a reminder, the Geoffrey Moore product vision template requires the following elements: For [final client], whose [problem that needs to be solved], the [name of the product] is a [product category] that [key-benefits, reason to buy it]. Different from [competition alternative], our product [key-difference]. The product vision should dictate the scope and requirements prioritization of what your development team builds. It is a reminder to the product manager to focus on a particular customer ...Read More

Once again, there is a difference between the internal product vision and the external corporate/brand vision and mission. For corporate visions used externally - website, digital and branded assets, conferences, etc. - it is very important to test messaging with users. For this, I recommend marketing message testing using qualitative or quantitative methods. An example of qualitative message testing would be a focus group or 1:1 interviews with end users, while an example of quantitative messag ...Read More