The Product Vision Board
The Product Vision Board is a simple tool for capturing a product's vision and strategy. It consists of five key sections: Vision, Target Group, Needs, Product, and Business Goals. The Vision defines the overarching goal, while the Target Group identifies the intended users and customers. Needs outlines the product's value proposition and the problems it solves, while Product focuses on the core features that make the product unique. Finally, Business Goals describe the desired business benefits, such as revenue increase or market entry.
The product vision board is not just a planning tool, but also a powerful mechanism for testing assumptions. By identifying the biggest risk associated with the product, you can focus on validating that area first. This allows for rapid learning and early detection of flaws, minimizing potential losses and maximizing efficiency. Additionally, while the board focuses on the product itself, it can be complemented with a business model canvas to capture details regarding competitors, partners, channels, revenue sources, and cost factors, especially crucial for new products or market expansion.
Published on 10th May 2011 Last Updated on: 8 Jul 2022
The vision plays an important role in bringing a new product to life: It acts as the overarching goal guiding everyone involved in the development effort. Equally important is the product strategy, the path chosen to attain the vision. Without a shared vision and an effective strategy, people are likely to pull in different directions, and the chances of creating a successful product are slim. While vision and strategy are key, describing them can be challenging. This post introduces the Product Vision Board, a tool that helps you capture the vision and product strategy.
A Sample Vision Board
Towards the end of 2012, I was exploring the idea of creating a software-based version of my product canvas tool that integrates seamlessly with other tools like JIRA and GreenHopper. To get started, I created an initial product vision board, which is shown below.
The product vision board above captures my assumptions about the users and the customers of the new tool, the needs the product should address, the key product features, and the value the product should create for my own business, Pichler Consulting. (I explain the sections of the board in more detail below.)
As you may have noticed, I have kept the information on the board concise. I did not, for instance, write personas and user stories, or create a design sketch. There are two reasons for this: First, I did not know enough about the users and customers at the outset to write personas and to describe the product in more detail. Second, I find that the product details are best captured in the product backlog.
The board was very valuable: It helped me think through my idea, and it allowed me to share my thoughts with my team, and with our development partner. Additionally, the product vision board helped me investigate the greatest risks by testing my assumptions, as I explain below. I now use the board for any new idea be it writing a new book, creating a new brochure, or updating a training course, and I help my clients apply the board.
The Vision Board Explained
The product vision board is the simplest thing that could possibly work to capture the vision and strategy of a product. It uses five sections as shown in the following diagram and explained below. You can download the template from the tools section of my website or by simply clicking on the picture below.
Vision states your overarching goal, the ultimate reason for creating the product, the positive change you want to bring about. Make your vision big and inspiring; use a brief statement or slogan; and ensure that the stakeholders and development team(s) support it, that it is shared. For more vision tips, please see my article 8 Tips for Creating A Compelling Product Vision.
Target Group describes the market or market segment you want to address. You should state who the product is likely to benefit, who its users and its customers are. Choose a homogenous, clear-cut target group, especially when creating a brand-new product.
Needs describe the product’s value proposition: the main problem the product addresses or the primary benefit it offers. The section should make it clear why people will want to use the product or pay for it. Capture what success looks like for the users and customers. If you identify several needs, prioritise them.
Product summarises the three to five features that make your product stand out and that are critical for its success. These are likely to correlate to its unique selling proposition, and they should address the needs identified. Don’t make the mistake of listing lots of features. Stick to a maximum of five. Capture the product details at a later stage in your product backlog.
Business Goals, finally, explain why it’s worthwhile for your company to invest in the product. It states the desired business benefits, for instance, increase revenue, enter a new market, reduce cost, develop the brand, or acquire valuable knowledge. The latter can be just as valuable as the former: When Toyota shipped the Prius in 1997, for instance, the car was not earning any money. But it immediately developed its brand (“green car company”), and had gained an advantage in hybrid technology. Prioritise the business goals to create focus and state targets. Otherwise, it’s hard to measure the product performance and apply the right key performance indicators (KPIs).
There are, of course, other helpful tools available that help you capture your ideas, including Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas and Alexander Osterwalder’s business model canvas. I may well be biased, but I like the simplicity of the product vision board: I find it beneficial to consider the target group, needs, key features and business goals when exploring an idea before thinking about monetisation and the business model.
You can also watch me explain the product vision board in the video below_._
Research and Validation with the Product Vision Board
The product vision board is not only a thinking and communications tool, it also allows you to test your assumptions, and capture the newly gained insights. To get started, I find it helpful to identify the greatest risk or biggest uncertainty on the board. This creates focus, and it enforces a fail-fast: figuring out quickly what works and what doesn’t, which assumptions hold true, and which don’t.
When I was working on my digital canvas idea, for instance, the greatest risk was initially misunderstanding the user needs, and potentially building a product that does not provide much value. I consequently decided to test my user needs assumptions before exploring further what features the tool should provide, or how the product should be implemented. I hence started carrying out a series of problem interviews, structured conversation with a prospect to understand the individual’s problems and goals without referring to the solution, and engaged in a few direct observation sessions.
These measures helped me understand the target group better, and assess how much value a product canvas app with JIRA integration would provide. It also made me update and change the board to reflect my latest thinking, as the following picture shows:
I suggest you follow a similar approach when you work with the vision board: Identify your biggest risk, and attack this risk first. Don’t be afraid to fail: Making mistakes is part and parcel of creating something new. What’s more, early failure facilitates fast learning and it can save you time and money.
Product Vision Board and Business Model
While a strength of the product vision board is its simplicity, it does not detail how the business goals are achieved and it does not capture the business model including the competitors, the partners, the channels, the revenue sources, and the cost factors. Describing and testing your business model ideas is particularly important when you develop a brand-new product and when you want to make bigger changes to an existing product, for instance, to take it to a new market (segment).
To capture your business model ideas you can either complement the product vision board with the business model canvas or use its extended version, the product vision board extended, which is shown below. The extended board is inspired by the business model canvas. You can download it for free from the tools section of my website.