Principles for a Product Vision
Is your product story worth listening to?
“Having a product vision is pretty hard” said Jimmy. “I am not even sure what to think about it or what’s that. There’s so much out there that it looks more like everybody is copying each other than have a vision. Why do we even need one?”
“It’s crucial to have a vision. A vision is what defines not only products or companies, but nations, religions and cultures overall. A vision is like the fuel that will keep you up and give the energy to continue. A vision is what will keep you on track and will be your indicator if you are close enough or not.”
“Close to what?”
“You goals. A vision has to inspire people to take action towards a common end goal. In our case, a product vision has to inspire every action your team will take when working on the product” said Sarah.
“But what if we don’t want to have a vision?” asked Jimmy.
Where there is no vision the people perish- Proverbs 29:18
“Well, in that case, you will be like the hamster in a running wheel. You will run on the same spot, lose resources and make no progress. But if you do have a vision, then it’s like a guiding star which you can see only during the night. During the day you put in all your efforts to come closer to her, and at night you look how close you got to her” said Sarah and sipped from her cup of coffee.
“That was deep,” said Jimmy.
Sarah smiled and continued “So there are a couple of principles you must keep in mind, but as you grow, you will develop your own principles. They are not a must follow, but rather a guiding list. But before I even give you, these principles know that you can’t create a vision if you don’t know yourself. Self-awareness is a key component in the whole equation of product vision.”
A leader will find it difficult to articulate a coherent vision unless it expresses his core values, his basic identity. One must first embark on the formidable journey of self-discovery to create a vision with authentic soul- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“But that discussion is for another day. Now, to continue our journey. Have you ever read anything by Simon Sinek?”
“I was about to read his book Start With Why”
“Well, it’s a must-read for beginners because the first principle is:”
People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe― Simon Sinek
1“You see, very few companies can articulate why they do what they do. I worked with a lot of clients who answered with their mission statement to my question “Why do you do what you do?”. A vision is not a mission statement, but they could not see further than that. Why? Because people are in a self-imposed rush for more — money, employees, market cap, sales, etc. And as they grow, they become this big corporation that shoots in all directions only making noise, rather than aim for something specific and achieve it.
So to know your why you always have to describe it with verbs. For example — we aim for disrupting the status quo, or we aim to do good at all cost and times” said Sarah. “And what if I can’t find my why, what shall I do then?” asked Jimmy. “Then why did you start the company in the first place?”, “I see,” said Jimmy.
If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2“And how shall I do that?” asked Jimmy. “Do you remember how you where struggling with understanding the design principles and what process to choose for designing your dashboard?”, “Yes”, “What did you do back then?” asked Sarah.
“I went straight to you for help. I wanted to understand how things work and how to improve myself” said Jimmy.
“That’s the same way you do with your vision. That’s the definition of falling in love with a problem. You don’t solve a problem. You become the problem, you own it, you know it, you study it, and then the solution will reveal itself during that process” said Sarah and paused for a second. “Way too many companies are in for the material stuff. And that’s fine, you can’t blame them. Falling in love with the problem, means that the process is more important than the end goal or result.”
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside awakens — Carl Jung
3“Oh, I know this one. It’s easy” interrupted Jimmy. “Is it?” doubted Sarah. “Try achieving a certain level of success in life. And then you will see that all eyes are on you and your actions. That’s when the world will see if you will follow the herd or be able to break the pattern and stand out in your own way. It’s easier said than done” said Sarah.
“So what shall we do then?” asked Jimmy. “As the company grows it will become harder for you to follow your own path because too many factors will depend on your decision. That’s why it is important to be self-aware and stay true to yourself. Don’t allow the outside noise influence your thought process when you follow an unknown road. If you are stubborn enough, you will eventually break into the light” said Sarah.
Be stubborn on the long-term vision, but flexible on the details — Jeff Bezos
4“Way too many people give up early. When I see somebody trying a new feature for our product, two months in and they change it back because customers did not like it. Five months later our competitor has the same feature. They did it with a different approach and hit market success. Why?”
“They did it better than us?”
“No, because they were stubborn and did not give up that easily” said Sarah.
“Ok, I understand. Be stubborn. But what does it have to do with being flexible?” asked Jimmy.
“Some people are stubborn, but they don’t change course because their ego does not allow it. Being stubborn and flexible, that’s the way to go. The soft wins over the hard and the hard wins over the soft.
For example, you may work on that new product release, but during the process, you discover something new. And that new thing is better, then implement it or adapt your product around it. It’s a question of how you find that balance”,
“How do you find it?”
”It comes with experience Jimmy” said Sarah smiling. “Look, if you want to make it happen, to be that unique product on the market, you have to take the risk of being misunderstood for a long period of time. I think that’s what also Jeff Bezos said in an interview.”
You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction — Alvin Toffler
5“Here, I will give you an example. Have you heard about Jack Ma?” asked Sarah. “The Chinese billionaire? I think he is the founder of Alibaba” answered Jimmy. “Yes. A brilliant man.” she sipped from her cup of coffee and continued “This man has a fascinating way of establishing a vision for his company. From one side, any reasonable person would say that Alibaba is an e-commerce company. But Jack Ma always says that they are not an e-commerce company. Instead, they are a tool that enables e-commerce for other companies.
And that is an exciting vision he has established for his company. First of all, it is inspiring. Because with that type of vision you can go in any direction. And that’s what a real vision must be — flexible but focused. And if you watch any of his interviews, you will see that he always talks one and the same thing. Why do you think he does that?”, “So people don’t forget it and always know why they do what they do?” said Jimmy.
“You are on the right path. Why do you think Christian preachers preach the same stories for so many years? Because it helps people understand why they believe what they believe in. Same applies to your company or product. You have to tell your people why you do what you do, at all time. This way everybody gets aligned and, also, gets a dose of inspiration before doing their best” said Sarah.
Companies need to be willing to disrupt themselves before others do it to them. That requires overcoming the fear that a new product or channel will cannibalize an existing business — HBR
6After some moments of thought, she continued “And you will have to reinvent yourself constantly. Disrupt yourself. Otherwise, you will end up like poor old Kodak.”
“Who?” asked Jimmy. “
That’s what I am saying. You will be forgotten. Kodak was a camera company. They barely breathe right now, like BlackBerry” said Sarah.
“Blackberry? A fruit company?” asked Jimmy.
“No, they are a phone company. And you know why they are forgotten? It’s because when you achieve a certain level of success in life, you start believing that you hit the sweet spot and nobody can take you down. This way you start gathering the results of your success. You get drunk in your own success. And that’s fine, but you forget that you have to do two things in this case. You either find new ways to reinvent yourself, or you take everything you can and get off the stage because younger and hungrier people want to take your spot. You have to always be on a hunt on how to put yourself out of business first.”
The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it— Michelangelo
7“And the most interesting thing is that even if you follow a set of rules or some principles you still have a chance to blow up. That’s why it is important to have people around you that will support your leap, and if you are down, they will work with you to get back up” said Sarah and paused for a moment “Nobody teaches you how to have faith in yourself so you will have to learn it the hard way.
“How?”
“By actually doing it. By working on your vision day in and day out. And if that does not work out, you assess what you did wrong, you get your stuff together and start over.”
How can companies be more innovative? Don’t follow the usual design process. A typical design process is linear with phase 1-research , 2-prototype, 3-design and dev. This process is used by almost everybody. But there is probably a much better model where you actually begin by putting together a really good team with a vision. And if you don’t have a vision, don’t go on — Dan Formosa
And in the end…
…remember what coach Wooden said once to his team “It’s not about winning fellas. But we sure as hell must give our best.” So a vision isn’t about winning, but it’s about the process and giving your best effort to that process. You have to put in the work because otherwise, a vision will be merely a dream. We work during the day and dream during the night. And remember that your vision is like a small baby. You have to have patience with it, a lot of patience, love it, nurture it, take care of it, and help it grow further.
