How a Product Vision Board saved my Strategy

​Dear Reader,​

I once led a newly formed product team that aimed to develop a product to increase the monetization of a specific user segment. I co-led a long Discovery effort that validated and scoped this product. At one point during our Delivery journey, my boss approached the team while I was on leave and asked them what they were trying to accomplish. Because the strategic clarity for our efforts only existed in my head, they couldn't articulate it clearly.

Which led to my boss, rightfully so, demanding that I get this sorted so that the team could connect to the choices behind our tactical priorities. It didn't take me long to synthesize existing work into a simple Product Vision board format. This created much more clarity for the team to get behind and engage more in our product decisions, which makes it embarrassing that I didn't create this clarity in the first place, because everything was so clear in my head.

Please think of any Strategy template as a distribution channel you need to reach the audience that should get value from your Strategy. For example, Roman Pichler’s Product Vision Board is one of the simplest canvases that has been around for a while. It was my format of choice back in the days when I had to step up my ability to communicate a Product Strategy to the team mentioned in this essay's introduction.

• The Vision and Business goals sections should result from the components in your Strategic Narrative dimension.
• The Target Group and Needs result from the components in your Playing Field Dimension.
• Filling in the “Product” section comes from your articulated Winning Moves (i.e., your Value Proposition and Differentiators).

I know that the seeming simplicity of synthesizing Strategy through canvases or statements can be deceiving. Remember that simplicity stands on the shoulders of the messy work you did before, choosing decisive components that form a coherent picture and exist within the boundaries of your company strategy.

Let this be a reminder that your Strategy can be perfectly thought out and based on well-researched insights, co-created by Individual Contributors and Leadership, and contain sustainable advantages over alternatives. But if nobody understands it and you can't integrate it into the decision-making processes of teams, the value of a useful Product Strategy will remain locked.

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Thank you for Practicing Product,

​Tim​

PS: I finally got to making the first Cold Brew of the season. Here's my go-to recipe for it.

Let's Meet in Munich!

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Who is Tim Herbig?

As a Product Management Coach, I guide Product Teams to measure the real progress of their evidence-informed decisions.

I focus on better practices to connect the dots of Product Strategy, Product OKRs, and Product Discovery.