The Unified Theory of Product Development: Part 4
Get up, stand up
Don’t give up the fight
Bob Marley and the Wailers
Now the vision and strategy for your product have been worked out, you need to make sure everyone who this is going to impact understands what you are doing and why.
For everyone in the company to understand the product vision and strategy you need to share it with them. Again, obvious, but this is too easily overlooked. A product vision without the support and understanding of the company — the people you are going to need to actually implement this product — is almost always doomed to fail. But if you do this right you get not only buy in on your vision but, far more importantly, you get to set expectations. It is vital for the long term success of your product that everyone in your company understands what you are doing, why you are doing it and what it means.
You need to do this presentation for a few reasons. First, it will help you refine your message and iron out any kinks or gaps in your thoughts. Second, you need to give your teams creativity the proper respect they deserve. You have done some good work together. Be proud of it. Own it. Third, and maybe most importantly, you need to explain how your vision and strategy impacts everyone in the business. They also need to be clear what is expected of them moving forward. These are important things.
Prepare a presentation that is thoughtful and elegant. Put more work into this than you think you should. Try not to go off stock templates. If you have a designer utilize them. This is probably the first time everyone gets to see how you are thinking about the business and the opportunity. Make it sing. My suggestion is that you avoid a series of bullet points and features and instead present this as a narrative that people can relate to. People love stories. People remember stories.
Practice the presentation with your team. Make sure it explains the why. Make sure it explains the how. And make sure it explains the strategy. Make sure you stress what you expect of everyone in the company so that they can be clear what their responsibility will be. Make sure you outline what you think success will look like. That’s a lot to make sure of but it is vital everyone has clarity. This won’t be easy but that’s why you need to prepare and refine.
Now invite everyone in the company to a product meeting (assuming you don’t work at Amazon or GE). Maybe give them snacks and drinks. Share the responsibility for presenting so that everyone understands that this is the product of a group effort. Make sure you get engineers involved in the presentation. They may hate it (they may not) but it’s a great way for everyone involved improve their presentation skills and up their game.
Once you have done that, I have a task for you. It’s a simple task but it can be illuminating. If you work at a company with more than 20 people I guarantee this will be illuminating. About two weeks after the all hands described above go around to people’s desks. Say hi. Ask them how there weekend was. And then ask them what the product vision and strategy is and see how well you and your team did at the all hands. Ask them what they thought of it. See if they have any questions. Seek out everyone but if the company is too big seek out the glue people as a priority. They can help you share the information, set the tone and get buy-in. If you are getting or seeing consistent feedback (either positive or negative) act on it. Feedback is what you want and need. Refine. If you missed something, correct it. As new people start at the company make sure they understand what the product vision and strategy is.
Without a clearly articulated and presented mission and vision everything that comes after can be detached from the company needs and performance can become subjective. This is your chance to make sure that doesn’t happen.
