‘How-To’ Guide for Crafting Your First Product Vision
I originally packaged this up from a recent coaching session I had with a Product Manager who had been tasked for their first time to develop a product vision from scratch — hope it reads ok and you find it useful.
There’s a lot of advice out there on how to write a good vision statement, many will point you to the popular ‘Elevator pitch’ format (among others), but personally I’ve never felt those frameworks were suitable for my final vision statement — you sure don’t see the likes of Telsa, Apple, etc using these kinds of formats for their vision statements, do you?
Perhaps that’s because they can generally be long and uninspiring.
I don’t know about you but I start to tune out when someone begins reading a product vision statement like a script — “For low-income earners who have difficulty with…” Zzzzzzz…
That’s not to say that I don't find them useful, just not as the final vision statement.
A good vision should be clear, punchy, and inspiring. It should rally me up and reading some template seldom does.
Rather I find tools like these useful at the beginning of developing your vision, for framing your thinking. I also often use them as a starting point —after all it’s much easier to fill in a template than starting with a blank page.
I’ve also kept them as a ‘page 2’ of my product vision before. Consider it the extended version with extra information that sits behind that single punchy statement.
At least that’s my personal preference and what I’ve found works. I recognize that we’re all different and even the process that I’m about to walkthrough may not be for everyone.
We all have our own styles and preferences, I’d encourage you to adapt this to your own circumstances and preferences.
Step 1: Framing
First step is to frame your thinking. Get into the vision building mindset.
What problem does your product solve?
Who is it for?
What are the traits that you want your product to be known for — easy, fast, fun, cutting-edge, etc
What’s the X factor? What’s your major differentiator?
Typically I’ll start with a brainstorm. I’ll ask myself a series of reflective questions like those above and either mindmap it or use post-it notes to jot down what comes to mind.
After gathering all the data the next step is to prioritize. Rank what you had brainstormed — are their certain words that jump out more than others? Are their traits that are more or less important?
🔥🔥 Pro tip: If you have a product team (or even the beginnings of one, like a skeleton crew) it can be extremely effective and beneficial to involve the team in this process. Brainstorm individually or as a group, and then use a good old round of dot-voting to prioritise.
Step 2: Employ a Template
Once you have a prioritized list of traits and gotten yourselves into the right mindset it’s time to start crafting your first set of iterations of what will eventually become your vision statement.
This is where some of those tools like templates and frameworks come in. I’ve done this many ways using different tools, I don't have a set one, it all depends on your context and what you think would work best for you.
But some that I typically use are:
Walk into the future: As the name suggests, craft a narrative of what the future looks like. Your product has been a great success, what does that look like and how does it feel?
Newspaper headline: Basically I’ll print off a popular newspaper front page, photoshop some images in, blank out the headline and dedicate some room for a blurb. I’ll then (typically as a group workshop) do a number of rounds to come up with different newspaper front pages — essentially a headline and a short blurb for some point in the future when the product was a huge success.
‘Tweet it’: this is very much the same as the newspaper headline activity but rather than trying to create a newspaper headline I try to ‘tweet it’. In 280 characters or less, create a statement about the product. A bonus is to incorporate a punchy hashtag — you’d also be surprised at how effective the hashtag can be too. I’ve coached organizations where Product Managers and teams have started using their hashtags internally — their fun and own brand identity — this did wonders for communicating their vision in a frequent and memorable manner.
Similar to the first step, if you are working as a group a great facilitation format is to use the Liberating Structure 1–2–4–All format.
🔥🔥 Pro tip: Can’t decide which to use, why not do a combination of a few? i.e. Roman Pichlers Vision Board followed by Newspaper headline.
Step 3: Craft your vision statement
Once you’ve settled on a longer vision statement in another (unsexy) format like those above its time to turn it into a punchy vision statement.
Start by taking the elements from all the steps you’ve done so far which resonate well and are aligned to the prioritized traits that you brainstormed at the beginning.
You’ll likely notice that as you step throughout the process you’ll start to get more concise as you go on and there may even be certain sentences or phrases which resonate — this is all part of the process, converging towards a single statement.
Although much leg work has been done, this final step is still the hardest part of the process. Trying to finesse everything you’ve done so far into a short, clear, and inspiring statement can be tricky. Unfortunately no magic formula here, just time and iterating.
🔥🔥 Pro tip: Involving the team or even a wider audience at any stage (more the better) in crafting a vision statement can be extremely beneficial. From building a better outcome through collaboration to generating buy-in and shared-ownership of the product vision through crafting it together.
Final Tips for crafting a Product Vision
Dream big and think long.
Make it vivid. People should be able to visualize it.
Use the present tense.
Clear and concise, don’t waffle, use acronyms or jargon.
Make it emotional. Passion comes through, this will help make it inspiring.
Ensure that it aligns and complements your organization’s vision.
Finally don’t try to perfect it. No vision is perfect from the beginning. Be prepared to revisit it, iterate and adjust.
A good vision should be clear, punchy, and inspiring.Whenever you're ready, I can help you in 4 ways:
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