Getting Started with Product Delivery
Product Vision and Product Strategy (Part 2 of 10)
“Our vision is more obstructed by what we think we know than by our lack of knowledge.” - Kristen Stendahl
Whether you are starting a new product or you inherited an existing product, creating or revisiting your Product Vision and Product Strategy is a great place to start. The combination of these two artifacts answers key questions such as why, who, what, and how for your product. Not having a compelling Vision or Strategy can be the one thing that breaks your product and team.
Product Vision
The Product Vision helps to answer the question, why does your product exist? It’s a long-term goal that is independent of a solution and it describes the purpose of your product and the reason your product is being created. It’s all about the future state of the product. Some of the benefits of having a Product Vision include inspiring both your Stakeholders and Team, providing the Product Owner with a reference for making choices about what to build, and providing a reference for measuring progress.
Examples of Visions:
- Roblox — To bring the world together through play.
- Amazon — To be Earth’s most customer-centric company where people can find and discover virtually anything they want to buy online.
- Google — To provide access to the world’s information in one click.
- Dunkin’ Donuts — To be always the desired place for great coffee beverages and delicious complimentary donuts & bakery products to enjoy with family and friends.
Product Strategy
The second artifact is the Product Strategy. Whereas your Product Vision describes a future state and where you want your product to be, your Product Strategy explains how you will get there. The Strategy is the path to your Vision. It answers the remaining three product questions of who, what, and how. Who does the product serve, what needs does your product solve, and how will it benefit the people it serves? A Product Strategy is a framework that provides clarity to your Stakeholders, improves your team’s decisions, and helps you with prioritizing your Product Roadmap which allows you to focus on creating something that meets real customer needs, rather than developing “shiny new” features that customers do not need.
What’s Next?
Once you have a rough draft of both your Product Vision and Product Strategy, take it to your Stakeholders and Teams. Share it with them and solicit their feedback. They can challenge and support you to make both your Vision & Strategy more ambitious or more obtainable. Including them will also help with providing a shared understanding and ownership.
Templates
There are several templates that are available to assist you with building a Product Vision and a Product Strategy. One that I like is Roman Pichler’s Product Vision Board which simplifies the creation of both the Vision and the Strategy as a succinct one-pager.
Here are some other good sites that you can use to help you with the creation of your Product Vision and Product Strategy:
- A surprisingly simple technique for a rockstar product vision: The Ladder of Needs by Catherine (Kit) Ulrich
- 10 Tips for Product Owners on the Product Vision by Robbin Schuurman
INSTALLMENTS
- Introduction with Table of Contents
- Previous Installment: Getting Started with Product Delivery: Introduction (Part 1 of 10)
- Next Installment: Getting Started with Product Delivery: Product Roadmap (Part 3 of 10)
I am very interested to learn what you think about this topic. My LinkedIn profile is https://www.linkedin.com/in/phooey
GO MAKE A HULLABALOO!!!
