Product vision – have you forgotten about yours?

The product vision represents the goal of a product and the project that drives it. It explains why the project is being undertaken and what the desired end state is. It is meant to evolve, with the inspect and adapt focus of Agile driving this. It isn’t a wish list of product features, instead it gives a collective vision but with enough flexibility to support creativity within a team whilst combating individual visions.

The vision should touch upon the following areas:

• Who is going to use the product? Who is the target customer?
• What needs will the product address? What value does it add?
• What product attributes are critical for meeting these needs and driving the success of the product? What will the product roughly look like and do? In which areas is the product going to excel? This can include non functional features if appropriate. Either way, go for 4 to 6 attributes, less is more!
• How does the product compare against existing products? What is its USP in comparison?
• What is the business model? How is it meeting the business requirements to fulfil the business objectives? How will the product make money? What are the sources of revenue? 
  
• Is the product feasible? Can the company develop and sell the product? Does the company have the technologies, budget and talen to make it possible?

The specific questions depends on the type of product you are building, however the questions listed should give you enough to know where to look. Inputs such as market and user research should feed into the product visioning process, especially for big projects.

Product visioning techniques include:
Prototypes and mocks up
Personas and scenarios
Mock press release
Product roadmap and release plan
Impact mapping
Elevator pitch…

As most people are comfortable with an elevator pitch it is a good starting point to get the conversation going to flesh out the details of your product vision. Here is a useful template for elevator pitches for you to follow:

1. For (target customers)
2. Who need (the problem you are trying to solve)
3. Our product is a (new product category)
4. That provides (key problem-solving capability).
5. Unlike (the product alternative),
6. Our product (describe the key product features).

This may well be enough or you may want to use this as a starting point to turn your vision into a statement. It should be clear, engaging and short (ideally sweet too), containing only details that are critical for the success of the product. Once you have your draft vision in place, test it to make sure it meets these characteristics. If not, keep refining until it does.

As a product owner if you are unable to get an agreement on your product vision, then you have to pause the project and lock everyone in the room until you do. Although it might not seem like it at the time, going stealth (aka rambo) by insisting on this being resolved will dramatically increase your project’s chances of success.