Product Vision

Yes. At some point, you want to have a set of key workflows and key personas nailed as a part of the vision canvas. And using low code or UX mocks etc. - you want to test the validity of the hypothesis to the next granular level. Always be testing, always be validating, always be pivoting and making small tweaks to your plan based on the feedback and data you receive.

Product visions should always be customer-focused. I'm not sure that you need to actually show your vision statement to users to get their feedback, but your vision should be informed by the user problems and product goals that your team hopes to solve over the next few years. In order to do that, you need to know your users intimately, and that often requires customer research and reviewing product data. 

* Product Vision is similar to a compass for explorers! Product Vision sets the North Star for the product teams and ensures that the Product Principles, Values & Strategy aligns with the Vision on a daily basis * Its easy for Product teams to devolve into a mess of features or play catch-up to competitors, etc without a singular vision thats bigger than the team's daily activities. Sony Ericcson, Nokia & Blackberry (smartphones), Bolt (electic cars) or Yahoo (Consumer & AdTech) are examples of firms that lost sight of their vision

Great product visions rally a team around a set of clear and concise goals. That vision represents the team's focus and can be a helpful tool when the team needs to make a decision or is starting to be misaligned.  In college, I had a marketing professor who was known by a simple tagline: "Lose your focus. Lose your shirt." No matter how much experience you have building products, it's so easy to get distracted and start to solving problems without proper validation. As Product Managers, it's our job to make sure our teams stay focused on the problems we are trying to solve. I've found t...

Pretty much the same stencil that I used to answer the previous question. If you are pivoting, I'd assume that one or more of these elements below have changed. So I'd use this framework to re-examine the sweet spot that you need to land on to be effective and win this next time around. Some elements to consider - 1. Market - Market landscape, gaps, and market opportunities. You want to work on an impactful problem area. Key Geos you will play in. etc. 2. Key vectors - I also like to play at the intersection of 2-3 key growth vectors - so I know directionally I am betting in the righ...

In my experience, I've found the best way to successfully pivot your product vision is to make sure your stakeholders are clear on the why, when, and how. Part of bringing a vision to life is rallying your team and getting your stakeholders excited about what's to come. In my last three roles, I've been hired to lead product teams that have recently gone through a lot of turnover. The designers and engineers appear to be skeptical of product, demoralized, and disconnected from the rest of the organization. Often times, it's my job to build trust and give the team a vision to rally behind. ...

* Hybrid products are exponentially harder to build than pure software products. Software can be updated via the cloud, at any time and with any frequency but hardware cannot * The form factor, the physical functionality, etc of a hybrid product need way more thought, user testing and context than the software. For instance, the physical components of the Tesla 3, the sensors, cameras, etc are paramount compared to the Maps, Apple Carplay integration or self-driving updates that can be done through the cloud  * Context, background and living with the problem are the key...

I think the biggest difference between crafting software vs. hybrid product vision statements comes down to scale. It's much faster to build, test, and learn with software product than products that touch hardware. With software, you can scale your product and customer base very quickly, whereas, hardware can take months, or even years to iterate and drive value.  Over the course of my career, I've worked on mobile, web, and hybrid (mobile + hardware) products. A few years ago, I worked at Hudl Sports where I led product for Hudl Replay -- a video analysis tool for professional sports te...

Some elements to consider -  1. Market - Market landscape, gaps, and market opportunities. You want to work on an impactful problem area. Key Geos you will play in. etc. 2. Key vectors - I also like to play at the intersection of 2-3 key growth vectors - so I know directionally I am betting in the right space. So, for example, you could be bullish on video as an explosive growth area for content and creativity and marketing, and you could be bullish on cloud as a universal enabler for key digital transformations across industries and domains, and you could be bullish on AI/ML as the key...

A product vision statement is a short, concise, and aspirational set of goals for your product. As a Product Manager, you will need to develop a deep understanding of your company, customers, compeititors, and teammates. Research will depend entirely on your level of understanding of these areas.  For the past 2 years, I led the Confluence Content Experience team at Atlassian. My team owned the creating and publishing workflow and our product vision statement looked like this: Our goal is to help creators feel confident creating and publishing more types of content on Confluence. For ...

I’m assuming the question is about setting a ‘team’ vision/mission and one doesn’t exist yet. The mission statement is the “What” and the vision statement is an ambitious future state of what the world might look like when you accomplish your mission. A crisp vision/mission statement serves as a strong identity for your team and guides them during critical moments of decision making, gaining alignment, prioritizing resources etc. Here is a framework that I’ve leveraged in the past to arrive at a vision/mission statement for my teams, collaborating with our cross-functional partners. Have e...

* Vision statements should be simple, describe the value and stand the test of time (atleast one or two market cycles) * Every product is built to solve a user/ people problem or help solve a pain-point. This should be the main focus when building a product vision and the most important questions are ‘Who is this product for’ and ‘What problem is it solving’? * Teams that answer the two questions above typically get their vision statement right and teams that focus on teh urgent, immediate or playing catch-up to competition (btoh real & perceived) usually do not * One ...

The product vision should reflect the needs of the customer, the current market, and the longterm strategy. I often see companies so myopically focused on their shortterm vision that they don't align with the market, the compeition, or customer needs and they lose product market fit. I find that it helps defining a broad vision for the year and then refocusing the roadmap quarterly to ensure the vision is still aligned to turbulent times. 

This is a question that is close to my heart and I love to see folks transition from Product Owners to Stellar PMs. Taking a step back, I truly love to see people become the best versions of themselves and it doesn't matter if they are Product Owners, Product Managers, Program Managers or any & every role they like to see themselves in!  The key to excel in any of these roles is to understand that every role has a few basic requirements but once they are met, there is the opportunity to bring a lot of creativity, one's unique interests and leverage the strengths that you bring to the table...

Metrics are absolutely necessary when building your vision board. As you think of metrics, think of what will really define success? And how will we as a team measure success? Here are a few examples of key questions teams try to answer as they think of crafting metrics for their vision canvas -  1. What KPIs will you use to define success? 2. What are your product goals and outcomes? 3. What are your quality goals and outcomes? (Performance and Stability goals for example) 4. How will you measure progress toward these goals? 5. How will you communicate progress towards these goals? ...

* Data & Metrics are at the heart of every product, be it Consumer, Enterprise or Platform. A metrics tree or hierarchy is critical and should follow the Execute -> Features -> Roadmap -> Strategy -> Vision structure highlighted in another question * The metrics dashboard should track the metrics across these different parts of the Product Strategy Stack. Each level of metrics is relevant for a different stakeholder or leadership layer in the firm. The metrics around Company Vision & Mission matter for the Exeuctive Leadership team, the metrics around the Company & Pr...

Product teams and firms should think about the relatioship between the Product, features & goals, the products' & companies' roadmap and finally the company strategy & mission! All these are related and are critical to build disruptve firms at scale * Company Mission is how the world sees your company and the change it wants to bring * Company Strategy is the logical plan to bring your company’s mission into being * Product Strategy is logical plan for how the product will drive its part of the company strategy * Product Roadmap is the sequence of features that implement the P...