How do you pitch your product vision to executives?

When pitching a product vision to executives, understanding their perspective is crucial. By initiating pre-pitch conversations, I tap into their mindset. This helps frame the vision collaboratively, making them feel part of its inception. If you have direct access to the stakeholders, then engaging them on a one-on-one basis not only eases the pitch but strengthens stakeholder buy-in.

Understand how they like to communicate (terse metric driven, visionary long stories, etc.), how their compensation plus other incentives work, and what are the existing power dynamics, if any. Then adapt to these.

Start by asking questions, do they share the same pains, values, and expectations? Establish a common ground to win over your audience before you start pitching. Make sure they feel heard and that their opinion is taken into consideration. In your pitch refer to some of the points they mentioned in their answers to your questions earlier, connecting the two together.

I personally like to study a bit about audience before I craft my pitch. Once I know them I start connecting with them, starting the conversation and make each other comfortable before the pitch meeting. Once they connect with you , it will be slight easier to make them empathise with my idea.

Some of the stakeholders during the meetings can be too focused on short-term or mid-term priorities and goals. As a result, they may feel a misalignment between their priorities and goals and the long-term product vision; they may think and convince everyone around that this is unattainable or not important for the business. The communication should take into account the stakeholders' planning horizon and clearly explain it

I simply use Story telling method , and it works out magically. It’s easier to explain about the problem and solution your product is offering creates a big impact .

One of my numerous tech. transformation projects was overhauling the mobile banking infrastructure for a mid-tier US bank. My pitch was more than just data; it was a narrative, a story of high-net-worth clients on the brink of departure due to the bank's outdated mobile app. One client questioned their loyalty, another cited data inconsistency across channels as their reason. I wove these anecdotes into my pitch, supported by competitive data, and it was these real-world, customer-centric stories that truly sealed the deal. It underscores the power of problem-solution alignment in capturing the essence of product vision.

Make sure you have properly defined the problem and not the symptoms. Spend enough time structuring the problem to illustrate the complete picture of the problem. Leverage popular consulting structured problem-solving approaches and principles (MECE, Pyramide principle, etc.)

One way to really highlight a problem is to form a relatable story around it, it has to be simple, requires minimal knowledge before hand and is digestible by a wide variety of audiences, typically leaders can have a strong point of view and so avoid attacking any of those head on and try and highlight how a world without / with your solution would look like. Outcomes over output is the aim.

In my tenure as a product leader, I've come to appreciate the power of well crafted vision statements. Take, for instance, our transformative mobile banking product, 'Polaris.' Its vision statement succinctly encapsulated our mission: 'To lead the stage with an award-winning mobile app that delights users at every touchpoint throughout their mobile banking experience.' This exemplifies the art of clarity, conciseness, and actionability in a vision statement. It serves as a North Star, guiding teams toward a common goal with a shared understanding of our purpose and desired outcome.

The vision should succinctly dictate the future of the trend/ user and the goal should dictate the why, how and what of the workflows that can help realise the vision. Vision should be bold, clear and exiting! Its critical to over-communicate the vision, to an extent where team is kind of starts hating you for it again and again, because it doesnt occur in day to day work and if often neglected.

Ideally a vision should captivate the audience and almost prompt a question, “but how is it possible”. Emphasis on a few keywords that are core to your vision should be repeated across the pitch.

Roadmaps are an evolving document, it’s important to highlight that the certainty is only for a short period forward in the roadmap, and the further away you are from today the more vague it can be almost becoming best guess in the long run. A very rigid roadmap counter intuitively shows a non flexible approach and a blindness to every changing landscape especially in today’s world.

When presenting your roadmap it's critical to emphasise that it will change. The outcome you're looking to achieve with your vision should stay consistent, but the route or plan to get there is liable to change as your teams learn more about the various solutions as well as how your customers react to those solutions.

The goal is to align your product roadmap with the company's strategic direction and gain support & buy-in from executive team. Effective communication, a clear business case & focus on value will enhance your chances of success in pitching your roadmap.

Don't go with the first version of your presentation to the executives. Make sure you spend enough time running it several times in a safe environment and nailing it afterward.

What I have found very useful is to seed your Product Vision to executives first in 1:1 conversations. 1:1 conversations allow you to be more vulnerable and well as better understand the perspective of your executives - allowing for much better feedback and collaboration. A group conversation post this exercise as input will always ensure you are not starting from zero in a group setting which is more likely to fail if a strong/loud executive does not like the direction of your Product Vision. You are also more likely to make each executive feel more valued and part of the Product Vision creation process this way.

It is important to note that a good execution will lead to solid future prospects for you. By showcasing an actual delivery to all executives, even for a small project, you will start building confidence in people around your personal brand. This will make things easier as you take larger projects within or outside the current organization. Do not discount follow through.

Show case studies! A product vision stays with a company for a good amount of time, which means everyone must be bought in to it. This also means executives would be put in a difficult (and risky) decision when presented with a proposal. They're putting their careers at risk too by contributing to this roadmap. Another component I would suggest in addition to the above would be to use case studies. Show how companies in other industries or constituents (whether direct or not) have benefited from a part of several parts of your proposal. Show real evidence of what has actually happened. Share what their customers said, what results they achieved, and if possible, what they had to go through. Make it as real as possible.

Condense your product vision into a concise and easily understandable statement. Avoid technical jargon or overly complex details. Emphasize the value your product brings to both customers and the business. Highlight the problems it solves and the benefits it delivers. Demo your product vision as a narrative. Use customer stories to illustrate how the product will make a difference. Discuss the pain points or challenges your product will address. Show how your product vision aligns with the overall business objectives and strategy. Explain how it contributes to revenue, growth, or efficiency. Highlight how your product will give the company a competitive edge in the market. Explain what sets it apart from alternatives.