ENGINEERING
Defining the Foundation
Understanding the Product Vision
Define what your software product aims to achieve, the problem it will solve, and the value it will deliver to users. This foundational vision aligns the team and stakeholders while guiding strategic and technical decisions.
Why it's Important
Ensures clarity and alignment across all stakeholders.
Helps prioritize features and avoid distractions.
Attracts team members, partners, and investors.
How to Implement
Conduct user and stakeholder interviews to gather perspectives.
Research competitors to understand market gaps and opportunities.
Create a one-sentence product vision that is clear and inspiring.
Test the vision statement by sharing it with potential users or advisors for feedback.
Revisit and refine the vision regularly as the team grows and gains insights.
Available Workshops
Stakeholder Alignment Workshop: Bring stakeholders together to brainstorm goals, values, and key challenges. Use a facilitator to ensure all voices are heard.
Empathy Mapping: Develop a detailed understanding of your target users’ needs, goals, and pain points.
Competitor Analysis: Map out competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the market to find your unique edge.
Vision Storytelling Exercise: Have team members describe the product’s potential impact in different scenarios to refine and unify the vision.
North Star Metric Workshop: Identify a single, overarching metric that reflects progress toward the product vision.
Rapid Prototyping Session: Test ideas quickly with low-fidelity prototypes to validate the core concept with a small sample audience.
Deliverables
Clear and concise product vision statement.
Target audience personas with pain points and needs.
A prioritized list of key product goals or features.
One “North Star” metric to focus on.
How to Measure
Survey team members to gauge their understanding of the product vision.
Evaluate alignment between the vision and prioritized features.
Conduct external feedback sessions with users or advisors to validate clarity.
Real-World Examples
Slack
Visioned to "make work simpler, more pleasant, and more productive."
Spotify
Aimed to "unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million artists a platform to share their art."
Airbnb
Focused on helping people “belong anywhere.”
Get It Right
Engage all key stakeholders early in the process.
Focus on user problems, not technical features.
Keep the vision aspirational yet realistic.
Regularly revisit and refine as market needs evolve.
Test vision clarity by explaining it to external audiences.
Don't Make These Mistakes
Writing a vision statement that is vague or jargon-heavy.
Ignoring input from team members or key stakeholders.
Failing to validate the vision with real users.
Overloading the vision with too many ideas or goals.
Letting the vision remain static as the company grows.
Provided courtesy of Tricia Ballad, Tech Leader
Disentangled Tech