Product Vision is Science Fiction

Tl;dr:

This article is an update of an article that’s been in my product leadership course handouts for years. It describes my beliefs on what product vision is and isn’t. And, I expect many to disagree. Because I know if I ask half a dozen experts what product vision is, I’ll get half a dozen different answers. This is my answer.

If you’d like to avoid reading this article, here’s the punchline:

Product vision isn’t setting revenue targets or creating a list of features you wished your product had. Vision is imagining a future world with your product in it and telling a story about how people will experience your product(s) in that future.

Here are some key points to keep in mind:

• Vision is the story we tell about how people use our products in the future
• Vision is meant to inspire and align those working on the product
• To inspire and align requires shared understanding not just a good document
• Vision is not a plan
• Vision is not a business goal or growth target
• Vision is not accurate, feasible, or even possible in the near term

If you’d like some advice on creating your product vision, advance to the end of the article where you’ll find a short recipe on doing just that.

Science Fiction

Imagine the world 5 years from now, or even 10. Imagine the type of technology that exists then. Imagine how people will be living then, what they do every day, what their interests are. Now imagine how your product fits into that future world.

I bet that was at least a little hard. That’s what creating product vision should feel like.

Product vision isn’t setting revenue targets or creating a list of features you wished your product had. Vision is imagining a future world with your product in it and telling a story about how people will experience your product(s) in that future.

And, that’s exactly why it’s a bit of an exercise in science fiction.

Here’s what vision looks like

In 1987 Apple created a short video describing their vision for the future. Today it looks like an old science fiction movie. You know how old science fiction movies look a bit hokie? They have a way of looking futuristic and outdated at the same time. And this video does… now. In Apple’s Vision-type, that’s what these are called, you can see the seeds of the iPad, FaceTime style video phone calls, and a way of working with it that feels like Siri does today. Imagine what the world actually looked like in 1986. There were no flat panel computers, no ubiquitous internet, no facetime calling, and no AI assistants. But the seeds of all those things were there. It took some boldness to assert that those things would be commonplace and in Apple’s products 10-20 years into the future.

Microsoft’s 2019 concept video produced in 2011 explores lots of touch controls and new ways to interact with computers we see finding their way into its Surface products today. It’s now over a decade past that. How did their vision hold up? Did they predict the future as well as Apple did? Do they just need more time? How did it help their product designers steer their product development work?

As you watch these videos, think about the adjectives you’d use to describe them: Fantastic, futuristic, inspiring, crazy, far-fetched, impossible… They’re all in bounds. Your vision doesn’t need to be as big or as far reaching as Apple’s or Microsoft’s, but, it had better help those who work for your organization imagine that future world with your products in it.

You should notice a recurring theme here in almost everything I write. Product thinking requires a deep focus on outcomes, in support of getting business impact.. And telling vision stories requires very long range thinking about outcomes. 

Product vision requires you imagine product outcomes way into the future.

Vision inspires and aligns people working on the product

To tell your product’s future story you’ll need a: 

• Storyboard 
• White paper
• Presentation
• Website
• Future press release or article
• Or any blend of these things

Or you might just tell great stories Whatever form you choose it should:

•  Help listeners imagine a future world
•  Be emotional and inspiring
•  Motivate people and teams to want to make this vision a reality

What is SpaceX’s vision for the future? I bet you know. I know I do. And it’s not because I saw a visiontype, reviewed a storyboard, slide deck, or read a white paper. It’s because I’ve seen bits of social media posts and news stories where Elon Musk talks about it. Because, he won’t shut up about it. And that’s a good thing.

For vision to inspire and align those working on the product, it doesn’t matter where it’s written or recorded, it must be in people’s heads. One of the best ways it gets in their heads is through the stories that leaders tell.

Remember, shared documents aren’t shared understanding.

Tthere is a pretty cool visiontype for spacex that I found. Pretty darn science fiction. 

Suspension of disbelief

Notice how the visiontype videos paint a future that didn’t come to pass. That’s OK. Yours won’t either. And, it doesn’t need to. You’re making some pretty bold predictions here. Not even Nostradamus could predict the future with this level of precision.

Others may be skeptical that this reality will come to pass. They’re right. It likely won’t come to pass exactly as you describe it. But, remember, it’s vision’s job to inspire and align those working on the product. You can see how the Apple video helped do that for people at Apple. That’ll be your job.

Your vision is not a specification. It’s not a plan. It won’t be an accurate prediction of the future. Get used to that.

Your organization’s mission statement isn’t its vision.

On Tesla’s website their mission reads:

“Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”

That definitely tells us what Tesla’s purpose is, their reason to exist – but reading it doesn’t help me, or any Tesla employee imagine what that future world might look like, or what kind of technology Tesla will be putting into that future world. The Tesla vision is in the stories Tesla’s founder and leaders tell. And, it’s not shared on their website.

If you’re a product leader, you’ll need to get good at telling stories about a future with your product in it.

A “vision statement” or “elevator pitch” isn’t vision

There are a variety of vision statements and elevator pitch templates out there. And they don’t work. This one for example:

You might have seen this one before. It nicely describes a product, who it’s for, and why it’s better than alternatives. Which is critical to know, and I hope you do. But, it doesn’t help anyone to imagine the future years from now. This is actually a product positioning statement. And, it’s important to position your current product in relation to competitors and other alternatives. It’ll help your customers understand who you are. Not to mention helping you understand who you are.

For more on product positioning, see April Dunford’s fantastic book: Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It.

Contextualize vision for your team

Unless you’re the founder of the company, you likely inherited the vision for the product you’re working on now.

To inspire your team, you’ll need to adapt the vision you inherited and make it real for the specific product or product area you manage

You’ll need to tell stories, write narratives, or build visiontypes that contextualize the vison for your product area. It’s your job to inspire them. Just make sure your product or product area’s vision supports your organization’s larger vision.

Co-create vision

If your leadership isn’t good at telling stories, or your organization hasn’t written white papers or built visiontypes, you may not have a clear understanding of that vision. And, I guarantee if you don’t, you’re not alone.

A common problem for many companies is that the organization has already achieved the vision that motivated the founder. That founder may not even be with the organization anymore. That company today may be searching for a vision – searching for its place in the future. In the meantime, vison gets replaced by revenue and growth targets. That’s not so inspiring and motivating.

Start by imagining your product or product area in the future. Tell those stories to leadership and your team. Listen to their responses and feedback. If your vision isn’t aligned with leadership, they’ll tell you. So, be careful to make sure you’re not using any career limiting ways of communicating.

If vision is missing, co-create vision with leadership and your team.

A short recipe for creating your product vision

Here’s a basic recipe for creating a vision story. Try doing this collaboratively with your team. Involve subject matter experts and others that understand your organization’s vision, its customers, and their needs. You may find it takes some research to incorporate future trends. Start by creating a first draft based on your assumptions. Doing so may expose the areas where more research would help.

1. Set your future time horizon

Anchor your vision around some point in the future. This could be 2 years in the future, or 10 years, or even longer.

If there’s lots of uncertainty about the future, you may choose a shorter time horizon. If you’re working on a new product, a shorter time horizon may be in order. Until your product finds its market and product market fit, there will be lots of unpredictability.

2. Describe the future (without thinking of your product specifically)

If you’ve anchored your vision in the future, you’ll need to start by imagining that future world, initially without your product in it. Think about these aspects of the world and what things might look like in the time you’ve anchored your vision.

• Technology: What technology innovations do you see coming? How do you think they’ll manifest themselves in future products?
• Social: How will people interact with each other in the future? More online? More face-to-face? More global? Different devices?
• Political: Will government regulations affect the way you do business? Are there changes coming that are relevant? If you do business internationally, how might relationships between countries affect the world?
• Environmental: Are there changes in the environment such as climate change that may impact your product?
• Economic: Are there economic trends such as inflation, low or high unemployment, shortages of skilled workers, the rise of cryto-currencies, or other things that are relevant to your product?
• Intersections and other trends: Which of these trends might intersect with each other? Certainly, the global pandemic and how people interact socially combined with advances in technology are creating a different future for all of us.

You don’t need to discuss all of these factors. There could also be relevant factor not listed here. Discuss what’s relevant to your product.

3. Think about your organization in the future

What are the qualities that make your organization distinct now? What are it’s unfair advantages over its competitors? How will those look in the future?

What new things is your company investing in now? How might those look in the future?

How will other future trends affect your organization?

4. Tell your future product story

Identify the characters in the story

Identify your customers and users. Who will you be focused on in the future? Identify the goals and activities they’ll use your product for. Create a lightweight proto-persona to build shared understanding about your users.

Ideate:

• Leverage your whole team.
• Share what you believe about the future, your users, and what they’ll be using your products for.
• Ask every team member to sketch a story. They can use words or pictures, or a mixture of both. They can draw screens, or something more like a comic book using simple stick figures. Fold paper in half 3 times to create 8 boxes. Try filling 8 boxes in 8 minutes.
• Share your stories. When everyone is done sketching, take turns telling your stories. Use what you’ve sketched to support the story telling.
• Vote for the parts you like best. Post all the drawings on the wall. Give every team member a fixed number of votes. I like giving team members the same number of votes as there are team members. 6 team members = 6 votes. Vote for the pieces and parts of the story you like by using stickies on the drawings.

Synthesize the best parts into a story

Combine the parts that make sense into a single story. It may be best to have a pair of team members do this then share the whole story back with the team.

5. Communicate your story

You can use several approaches to share your story:

• Write a narrative or scenario
• Create a story map
• Create a storyboard using words and pictures comic book style
• Create a UI storyboard using words and screen sketches
• Write a future press release
• Create a short video communicating your story
• Act out your story by playing the roles of users – often called bodystorming
• Blend any or all of these approaches

Be as creative as you like. Your goal is building shared understanding in your listeners. And ultimately to inspire and align them.

Use your vision to inspire and align those working on the product

What next?

Next in this series will be my article on product strategy – an equally confusing and controversial subject. Stay tuned for that.

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