Back to Your Feed

What do product teams get wrong when defining their product vision?

2 Answers
Bhaskar Krishnan
Bhaskar Krishnan
Meta Product Leadership - Ads, Commerce & AIJune 8
  • 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 of the best examples is is that of the iPhone vs Blackberry - the iPhone focused on solving real-consumer problems in accessing the internet & online content from your phone while the Blackberry foucssed on adding features for their Corporate customers 
  • The interesting sub-plot here is that Sony Ericsson & Nokia had smartphones that were much more capable than the iPhone when it launched and Sony Ericsson was a leader world-wide. But, they almost didn't have a Vision (or didn't seem to have one) and threw away their marketshare & lead by throwing features & specs at consumers that didn't help them in any manner 
  • This brings us to another critical point in Product Vision - Timing! Great products could be ideated years or decades before the Technology allows them to be! General Magic almost launched the first smartphone in early 90s, almost 20-years before the iPhone! Apple itself launched the first tablet in the early 90s (but killed it). This mix of market awareness, technology limitations or capablities, consumer willingness to pay, etc all matter when defining a Prodcut Vision

840 Views
Tracy Montour
Tracy Montour
HiredScore Head of Product MarketingJuly 29

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. 

251 Views
Top Product Management Mentors
Poorvi Shrivastav
Poorvi Shrivastav
Meta Senior Director of Product Management
Richard Shum
Richard Shum
Splunk Director of Product Management
Chris Omland
Chris Omland
Workiva Vice President Of Product Management
Natalia Baryshnikova
Natalia Baryshnikova
Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility
Deepak Mukunthu
Deepak Mukunthu
Salesforce Senior Director of Product, Generative AI Platform (Einstein GPT)
Patrick Davis
Patrick Davis
Google Group Product Manager
Paresh Vakhariya
Paresh Vakhariya
Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence)
Zeeshan Qamruddin
Zeeshan Qamruddin
HubSpot Senior Director of Product Management, Flywheel
Omar Eduardo Fernández
Omar Eduardo Fernández
GitLab Director of Product Management
Jacqueline Porter
Jacqueline Porter
GitLab Director of Product Management