How to Define a Product Vision?
Whatever project you start, you should have a goal. Its important to understand the direction of your business and define what success means to you. Product vision helps you handle this task so you can pursue your business goals and achieve the best results. In this post, we shed light on the concept of product vision, its components, and useful tips to create an inspirational vision that will lead your team to success. Product vision, also known as a project vision, is one of the deliverables you get during project discovery phase activities. If you dont have a clear understanding of your project and need some help from professionals who know how to solve different business problems, the discovery phase is the first step of the development process. Discovery includes different types of research such as market research, competitors research, SWOT analysis, feature breakdown list preparation, and more. If you asked us to describe a product vision with one word, we would say its your products motto. Its the representation of what you and your team want to achieve with a ready product. Its a motivational statement that helps you and your team move forward and reach your goals. A product vision statement is a written representation of your product vision. It usually consists of several sentences and clearly describes where youre heading in your business journey. Its used as a reminder for the whole team about your end goal and defines success criteria so every team member works to achieve the best results. Wed like to point out that defining a product vision is important for Scrum teams as well as Agile ones. No matter what approach you use to develop your product, understanding your vision is equally important. Now, as you know the difference between a product vision and a vision statement, lets see what helps you define a company vision in a way that reflects the essence of your business. Things to understand before writing a product vision document  While a vision statement is difficult to call a document since it consists of only several sentences, it should be very clear and catchy. Thats why you should precisely understand several key factors that should be reflected in your statement. Lets see. The main problems  To succeed in the market, every new product should solve a particular problem, otherwise, it wont be in demand. So the understanding of your product vision should start with an understanding of the main problems your product will solve. Unique value proposition  A unique value proposition (UVP) should explain how your product will solve the problems of your clients. Your UVP should communicate the main value your customers will get when using your product. Competitors and target audience  Knowing your competitors allows you to make your product better than those that already exist. You can also use the information about your competitors to create an outstanding UVP. Understanding your customers, you know exactly what product they need and how you can help them solve their pain points. The better you know your audience, the higher the chances that youll attract the right customers. Once you get a customer profile, you can add maximum specificity to your product vision document. Key performance metrics  Whatever product you build, you need to decide how youll measure its success. To do it, you need to list performance metrics that show your progress. For example, you might want to have a million active monthly users a year after product launch. If you manage to reach this number, it means that you are on the right path to success. The more performance metrics you can come up with, the easier it will be for you to measure your success in the future. Business opportunities  Try to see a bit further than obvious and provide even more information in your vision statement. Looking for more problems and solutions, you can find more opportunities for your business and grow your business in those areas, too. Tips to write a great product vision statement  Once you know the main information you need to communicate in your startup vision statement, you should understand how to communicate it. Below, we list several tips that help you convey your ideas effectively. Make it simple. Dont use complex words and grammatical constructions when expressing your product vision. The simpler you write, the easier it will be for your team to remember and follow your motto. Be specific but flexible. In your vision statement, you should express your end goal and define your understanding of success. Its important to make it measurable so every team member understands the exact results you want to achieve. At the same time, you should leave some space for changes as what you plan today might be irrelevant in five years. Dont use buzzwords and jargon. While such vocabulary might work for advertisement or promotional campaigns, its not a good idea to use it in your vision statement. Make sure you use simple words and clearly communicate your goals so they are easy to understand even through the years. Inspire. Being your teams motto, a project vision should motivate you and your team members to work towards your goal achievement. Try to make it as inspirational as possible to support your team in your common path to success. Create it together with your team. Last but not least, this tip is vital to follow. A product vision shouldnt reflect only one persons ideas, it should reflect the vision of a whole team or company. Plus, the more people work on vision statement ideas, the higher the chances of creating something really outstanding. By following these simple tips, youll be able to create a vision statement that will become your guiding light. Three steps to creating a vision statement  Although creating a vision statement doesnt seem a difficult thing to do, you should take some time to make it really great. You can follow the steps below to work on your statement. Start with the facts  There are three questions that you should use as a basis for your statement. When answering these questions, you shouldnt worry about the form of your answers  at this stage, your task is to provide the facts that you will use as a basis for your vision statement. Put the answers together  When you have the facts, gather them in one sentence to get a motto-like statement. Since you have three answers, you can mix them and change the order to get different variants. Its even better if you get more than one statement so that you have the choice. Revise and improve  Once you get several ready variants of your vision statement, you should decide on the best one. To do this, you can gather feedback from your team and ask them what variant they like the most. They can also offer improvements and advice on the things to add or remove from your current version. This stage can take the longest of all and can repeat several times. Since you want your vision statement to be perfect, you might return to discussing it again and again until everybody is happy with the result. Once youre ready with the final version of your product vision statement, you can use it as a guide for your whole team to achieve the success you want. Vision statements of famous companies  If youre still unsure how the final version of your vision statement should look, we offer you to consider the statements of other companies. To accelerate the worlds transition to sustainable energy.  Tesla  Teslas product vision defines the company as an accelerator of transition to alternative energy, and one can only wonder how successfully they manage to follow this statement taking into account the pace at which they build their factories. To connect the worlds professionals to make them more productive and successful. LinkedIn  In its statement, LinkedIn successfully communicates its main goal and value for its users. If you have ever used this social network, you can say that they manage to follow their statement just as they describe it. We work hard every day to make American Express the worlds most respected service brand.  American Express  American Express is one more organization that communicates its company vision clearly and sticks to it with maximum precision. It not only values its customers but also its employees so they have a reputation as a respected brand in the world. There are more examples of great vision statements on the Internet. Feel free to read more and get inspired to create your own company vision. Conclusion  Its impossible to achieve success without defining it. Thats why you should create a product vision and express it in the form of a vision statement. With this statement at hand, you and your team will always know where to move.