A Product Vision or the Product Vision Statement is a description of the essence of your product: what are the problems is it really solving. How will the world look when you have achieved said vision. A Product vision gives your team a bigger picture of what they are working on and why. Let’s talk about techniques for envisioning a product and the content and qualities of an effective product vision.
Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” Alice asks the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where –,” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat (Carroll 1998, 56).
What is a product vision?
A product vision describes the future state of a product that a company or team desires to achieve. It’s essential to be able to paint a vision of what a new product or the next version of the product should look like. The vision acts as the overarching goal to help guide people and is the product’s reason for existing. The trick of having a product vision early on might narrow the innovative outcome of what the product can be. However, not having one might cause more damage than good by spreading the essence of that the product should do too wide. Nothing is really set in stone and as such demo-ing product increments to customers and users in the sprint review meetings and releasing software early and frequently can help validate and refine the product vision.
An effective vision should answer the following questions:
- Who is going to buy the product?
- Which needs will the product address?
- Which product attributes are critical for meeting the needs selected and therefore for the success of the product?
- How will the company make money from selling the product?
Desirable Qualities of Product Vision
The product vision should describe the core of why the product exists that is narrow enough to provide focus but broad enough to support creativity and innovation.
Shared and Unified
Everyone on the team should buy into the vision of the product. That includes your investors, your engineers, your scrum team, your customers. A vision is truly shared when you and I have the same, not similar, but the same idea of what the end goal should be. It should be unified to such a point if someone outside the company asks two different people inside the company, he or she should get almost the exact same response. A shared vision creates alignment and galvanizes everyone involved in the development effort.
Inspiring and Engaging
The product vision should describe an inspiring and engaging goal. A goal helps focus the development efforts but leaves just enough room for creativity. Try to resist the temptation to make too much detail or over-specify. It should be concise, simple, and straight to the point.
Short and Sweet
The product vision as said earlier, should be straightforward and to the point. No crust, no fluff just include all the right stuff. When it comes to the product vision, less is more. It should contain only information critical to the success of the product. The product vision is not a feature list, nor does it have to include any details on how to get there. Can you explain your product vision in the time it takes to ride up in an elevator? If not, you need to refine that some more.
Takeaway
A Product Vision or the Product Vision Statement is a description of the essence of your product. A quality Product Vision statement should be: Aspirational, Actionable, Linked to Corporate Goals, Clear and Brief, and concise.
