Can you give an example of a bad product vision statement? What would you do to improve it?

Vision statements are critical for products, product portfolios and companies. Firms with clear vision statements are able to adapt, evolve and focus on solving problems that their customers face, better than competitors and in a manner that brings forward all their strengths. Firms without clear vision statements and products without one become stale, one-hit wonders or worse, seasonal crazes like beanie babies Here are vision statements from two financial services firms  1) “aspire to be the b ...Read More

A bad vision statement is one that is either too narrow or too broad. It is hard to get a vision statement right, but you need it to be ambitious, but believable. It needs to address what you are trying to achieve. Few reasons why it can be a bad vision statement include: Too long. You want the vision statement to be memorable, not an essay. Pick what is relevant. Trying to solve all problems and not providing a direction. Trying to sound good instead of talking about what your product should tr ...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

With product vision, we need to carefully tread the line between making it too generic/vague or too technical. Other things to consider are - it should clarify what impact it creates, what unique value it offers and what is the long term goal while also making it inspiring. If target audience or problem area is niche, then it should also specify the target audience or the specific problem. An example for an unclear product vision is “ We want to make customer service better for companies”. Utili ...Read More