Product Management Intro: Vision, Goals, and Stakeholders

?? Update 28th October 2022

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Many people ask me for advice on product management. I have no doubt that it is a fully learnable, repeatable skill that anyone can master. In this part, I summarize a few proven, easy-to-apply practices that can immediately improve your results even more.

Create an inspiring product vision

A Product Vision describes the overarching long-term mission of your product. Vision statements are aspirational and communicate concisely where the product hopes to go and what it hopes to achieve in the long term. A good example of the product vision is a video by Mark Zuckerberg:

Effective vision needs to be:

• Inspiring?— people who help to implement the vision should feel inspired
• Achievable —?it must have a decent chance to work. Don’t dream of traveling to Alpha Centauri until you send humans to Mars
• Documented — do not let the vision stay in your head. You need to actually write it to make it work
• Communicated?— it seems obvious, yet many forget about this. Vision will work only if you tell others about it
• Emotional as well — vision becomes much more memorable, when others can imagine themselves doing something practical and when it speaks to their hearts

Be patient, as this is not a one-time task.?You have to communicate with others, get feedback and adapt. Your product vision will emerge and evolve over time.

Define “why” instead of “what”

Many teams start working on deliverables without clearly defining and understanding a current goal they want to achieve. This results in making many wrong decisions, limited autonomy, causes inconsistencies and prevents the self-management of the teams. The product vision is not sufficiently specific to fill that gap.

“Be stubborn on Vision but flexible on details” —?Jeff Bezos, Amazon

The product goal is designed to push the threshold of knowledge towards a brother product vision. The product goal is a concrete, measurable description of the product impact: the medium-term effects that should be triggered.

The product goal provides the link between the work and overarching goals both within and outside the organization. It creates focus, gives a clear direction, and provides something to plan and inspect your work against.

An excellent tool to split the product goal, discover and prioritize the outputs is the so-called “Impact Mapping” technique. It allows you to associate the goal with actors (people), defining the actions these personas will take and brainstorming the deliverables that will prompt these actions to take place.

Remember that this is a task that you cannot complete on your own. So instead of shutting yourself up at work, go out and talk to those who will be affected by the changes.

“Great products are engineered when product managers truly understand the desired outcomes by actively listening to people, not users” – Michael Fountain

To work with Impact Mapping I often use my XMind subscription:?https://www.xmind.net/

If you are used to Miro,?Miro — Impact Mapping template?is a great way to start right away.

Know your Stakeholders

It is worth realizing that not every stakeholder is equally important. Your responsibility is to identify the stakeholders who have to say in the direction of the product and ensure they are included.

One of my favorite techniques is to put stakeholders on an “Influence 2x2” map. This tool is easy to use and gives you a better idea of how to involve them. There are two dimensions that need to be considered: Influence (power) and Interest (availability).

There are 4 possibilities:

1. Low influence, Low interest — You can spend less time on them. These can be, for example, other department members. Monitor them, provide basic information and keep them happy enough.
2. High influence, Low interest — These can be for example board members. They can easily become detractors, so keep them informed and satisfied.
3. Low influence, High interest — Keep them informed and consider putting them to work. In many cases, they will be happy to help.
4. High influence, High interest — You must actively engage with them. Manage them closely so that they are well informed and satisfied.

Once the matrix is complete, it is also worth discussing it with the team. A stakeholder map once made should be periodically verified, because power and interest can change over time.

If you are not sure how to get started,?Miro — stakeholders analysis template?is a great way to start right away.

Don’t try to please everyone.?Your primary goal is to deliver value. Be open, transparent, experiment to validate assumptions, use data and evidence rather than “gut feeling", but don’t hesitate to make the final decisions.