Always start with Why

I have been a product manager for some time now mostly in enterprises that had incubation projects that become to be large-scale products. I do product mentoring from time to time, especially to young startups in their early stage of building a product. I always claim that the seeds you plant will be your production process in the future. It is difficult to change a company’s culture and DNA (possible but difficult) and looking beyond the next day is something a talented product manager should do.

I have decided to share some of my product experience and insight in this series of posts I intend to publish in the upcoming months, my contribution to the community, and to the product management role that I love so much.

Product planning

The secret to product planning starts with “why.” In some cases, product planning focuses on what we’re building, completing, and what’s up next. The rationale for all that activity isn’t simply to cross things off the list or pump out new functionality. It’s about turning a vision into reality.

But what is a vision and why it’s critical for product managers? The answer is simple, in opposition to the company mission is a long-term view into the future the vision is something tangible you can view (that’s why it is a vision). Remember, if you can’t view it is not a vision.

But connecting the dots between the activities of a particular product development team and the overarching corporate vision can be a bit of a stretch for those not steeped in the strategic exercises occurring at the top of the organization. How a particular widget maps back to a vision of “transforming the world separate clouds into multi-cloud orchestration” or “unlocking the potential of IPV6 into humans ID” or whatever can be a heavy lift. To unlock the secret to product planning, product professionals need to develop a clear product vision.

Putting Vision into Context

In an ideal world, everyone should understand the organization’s overall vision. It’s beneficial to take a top-down approach. Breaking that vision down into smaller pieces becomes more relevant to different parts of the business. It’s not always easy to map the contents of an individual sprint but a high-level strategy for an entire company remains possible.

The significance of each element of the strategy increases stakeholders’ involvement and alignment. Alignment creates motivation and enthusiasm among teams. Teams and individuals can now realize how their contributions impact the big picture (and who doesn’t want to impact the big picture). This increased fidelity must begin at the planning stages, creating the platform for ongoing alignment and teamwork. And goes all the way, same as product teams have a vision that aligned with the company vision, the same goes for engineering, support, sales, and all groups within the org.

Planning, outcomes, and accountability

When working in a squad each team must understand its purpose and objectives. The squads understand what success looks like to them. Each member should answer the question: “What will our customers be able to do tomorrow that they can’t do today?” This very concrete, specific ideal guides their actions. If you want to make a test go to the squad team member this question, and you’ll be surprised by the answer, if you think this has no impact on your product then you have not been in the business for a long time.

For example, it might be that customers can now automate more of their daily updates. The update doesn’t spell out precisely what that might look like or how it will get built. However, the vision is crystal clear. The product manager can then fill in more details. Consequently, delivering value is more important than a list of features. That value must also be measurable to ensure the team achieves its goal of executing its vision. Alignment around how we know our customers’ lives got better is just as crucial as intending to improve things. That shared definition of success keeps everyone pointed in the same direction. Moreover, it creates a benchmark for ongoing, measurable refinement.

Keep everyone in the loop, and then do it again

While strategic thinking and keeping everything in perspective are product managers’ strong suits, that’s not always the forte for everyone in the organization. They may not have the motivation to do so, and they may also lack the information and context even if they did. Therefore it’s up to product management to determine the right level of vision required to give everyone enough autonomy to move forward without overwhelming them. This task only becomes more difficult as the scale of the vision expands thanks to growth.

Creating a shared vision

By presenting a shared vision and securing buy-in, the product calibrates the squad to be on the same page. Presenting roadmaps tailored to the audience provides a helpful resource to paint this picture as well. You may ask why? but keep narrowing things down to help focus teams. For example, if you know a team in particular’s contribution to accelerating product outcomes centers on collaboration within the application then briefly explain how collaboration contributes to the vision, giving product development further insight into the purpose of their work and not just the “what.”

Shrinking the view and scope of things isn’t typically how the product discusses vision, but departing from classic narratives and concentrating on specifics is what the implementation teams need to succeed giving the team a better picture of how their individual and team efforts plug into the larger strategic objectives and customer experience. It turns into concrete action plans and tasks.

Planning without becoming a feature factory

Company missions rarely change. Visions for the business typically extend five or ten years into the future. And strategies tend to cover the next year or two. Things get more specific the closer they are to the present. But while missions and visions are vague, strategies and roadmaps tend to get more detailed out of necessity. Things can’t remain fuzzy once it’s time to build stuff, and that granularity helps teams plan accordingly and deliver functionality that adds customer value. However, one shouldn’t confuse increased specificity with rigidity. The secret to product planning is to remain vision-driven and customer-centric. Product teams should stay flexible at every stage of the product planning process. A product vision gets more precise as you continually learn more about your customers, their needs, and the overall market dynamics. That’s where a roadmap based on themes versus specific features comes in. We’re all aligned about what areas we’re focusing on and our goals for each effort, but there’s still plenty of wiggle room on the details right up until implementation kicks off.

Sense of purpose

Building products is still a job, and work remains an obligation versus a choice for most. However, imbuing the team with a sense of purpose can elevate the team above the daily grind and get them pumped up for what they can achieve. By continuing to build what customers need and not just the promises in an outdated vision, strategy, or roadmap, we keep that joy of delighting customers close to the surface. We know we’re prioritizing what matters and spending our cycles on enhancements to the product experience that genuinely make a positive difference. And we won’t just build things because months or years ago, we happened to say we would. The process only works well with suitable structures in place. A foundation built on increasingly relevant visions grounds the work in its purpose. Visual roadmaps tie each project, and task, and sprint back to each level.

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