Crafting a Compelling Product Vision

Adopting a product model requires empowering teams to make critical day-to-day decisions. But without a shared vision, there’s a risk of misalignment between senior leadership’s expectations and what the teams deliver.

The problem is not that a vision does not exist. It is often that the vision that senior leadership have for the product is not widely communicated and understood. Teams need this context because there are continuous, day-to-day decisions that need to be made and having an overarching direction for the product helps teams to prioritise options more effectively. The vision can also prove to be an effective motivator for staff as well as a recruitment tool for new hires.

But not all visions are equal. What makes a vision truly effective, and how can you create one that resonates with your team and stakeholders? Let's dive in.

Bad Vision Types: Anti-Patterns to Avoid

Before we delve into creating an effective vision, let's look at some common pitfalls:

1. The Money-Focused Vision

"We're going to build a billion-dollar telemedicine platform!"

While this might motivate investors, it fails to inspire employees or guide product decisions and it can lead to short-term thinking at the expense of long-term improvements.

2. The Technology-Centric Vision

"We'll create the most advanced AI-powered telemedicine system!"

This focuses on the 'how' rather than the 'why'. We’ve all seen how every company is rushing to add AI features to their products, but very few of them are actually delivering real value and solving real customer problems in a usable way.

3. The Vague Aspiration

"We'll revolutionize healthcare!"

While ambitious, it's too broad to provide meaningful guidance to teams when they are faced with tricky prioritisation decisions.

What a good vision looks like

Now that we’ve explored the common mistakes, let’s look at what makes a vision truly effective and how you can craft one that resonates both with your team and stakeholders.

The Elevator Pitch: A brief, compelling description that can be delivered in the time it takes to ride an elevator.

The Press Release: A forward-looking press release that announces your product as if it has already achieved its vision. This has been popularised by Amazon because it forces people to really think about the customer and how the product will benefit them. Nobody is going to write an article about your features but they might about how you are solving a really thorny customer problem.

The Day in the Life: A narrative that describes how your product will transform a user's daily experience in the future. I really like this format as a product often touches either multiple people / personas or multiple different jobs to be done. By focusing on how your product works in a user’s daily life, you help your team connect emotionally with the impact they’re making.

While I have listed three different methods they are really different aspects of the same vision. Each one serves a slightly different purpose but together they enable a clear and consistent messaging of the key problems the product solves and how it will improve the lives of the end-users.

Multiple Personas, Multiple Visions

To move beyond generic talking points, I’m going to use an example to hopefully make the concepts more tangible. I am going to use telemedicine as the example because, like many products, it serves multiple user types; medical providers: doctors, nurses, and administrators as well as the patients: elderly patients, busy professionals, rural residents etc. While it is a single product each of these personas have different jobs-to-be-done and therefore our product needs to identify how it will help them.

An additional benefit of thinking about the different persona types is that we can get explicit about which groups are in-scope for our product and which are out. This will help to avoid pointless prioritisation arguments further down the line in product development.

Problems and Futuristic Solutions in Telemedicine

The underlying core problems that a product solves should be long-lasting but the ways of solving the problems should move with technology. The first step is to identify the core challenges, per persona type, so that you can anchor your vision around those problems.

With the core challenges identified now you can start to put on your sci-fi hat and start imagining a better future for your customers.

Here are some key challenges in telemedicine and potential futuristic solutions:

Access to Care

Problem: Limited access to specialists in rural areas

Future Solution: AI-powered preliminary diagnoses and AR-assisted remote specialist consultations

Continuity of Care

Problem: Fragmented patient data across different healthcare providers

Future Solution: Unified health records accessible across all providers with AI summarisation based on context

Emergency Response

Problem: Delayed emergency care in remote areas

Future Solution: Drone-delivered emergency kits with AR-guided first aid instructions

Chronic Disease Management

Problem: Infrequent monitoring leading to complications

Future Solution: Smart-watch continuous monitoring with predictive AI alerts

Day in the Life Vision Examples

Now that we have our core challenges and potential solutions we need to thread them into a story narrative. People don’t care about features, they care about emotions, so creating a story with an incident, a challenge and a solution makes it much more memorable, engaging and motivating.

Let's create two "Day in the Life" vision scenarios for our telemedicine product:

Scenario 1: Rural Resident

Meet Sarah, a 45-year-old mother living in a small rural town.

Start of Day: Sarah wakes up and checks her health dashboard on her smartphone. The AI has analyzed her sleep patterns and vital signs from her smart wearable, suggesting some lifestyle adjustments to improve her recent sleep issues.

Mid-Morning: Sarah's 10-year-old son Ryan complains of a rash. She uses her phone to scan the affected area. The AI suggests it might be an allergic reaction but recommends a virtual consultation to be sure.

Noon: Within minutes, Sarah is connected to a dermatologist. Using high-definition video and augmented reality overlays, the doctor examines the rash closely. She confirms it's an allergic reaction and prescribes medication. The prescribed medication is delivered by drone to Sarah's doorstep within the hour, along with clear instructions for use.

Afternoon: Sarah's father, who has chronic heart disease, receives an alert from his implanted heart monitor. The AI detects a potential issue and has alerted the doctor. He receives a call within minutes.

End of Day: As Sarah prepares for bed, she feels grateful for the peace of mind that comes from having quality healthcare at her fingertips, despite living hours away from the nearest hospital.

Scenario 2: Doctor managing patients

Start of Day: Dr. Chen logs into her telemedicine platform and her AI assistant immediately provides a summary of scheduled appointments and overnight alerts from patients' remote monitoring devices.

Morning: A notification appears about Ryan, a 10-year-old patient needing an urgent consultation for a rash. During the video call, the AI analyzes the feed in real-time, suggesting, "Possible allergic reaction. Recommend asking about new environmental exposures." This prompt helps Dr. Chen quickly identify a new laundry detergent as the likely cause. She explains the diagnosis and treatment plan, confident in her assessment backed by AI analysis.

Afternoon: Dr. Chen has a follow-up appointment with Lisa, a patient managing chronic diabetes. The AI presents an analysis of Lisa's continuous glucose monitor data, highlighting patterns and suggesting insulin adjustments. During the video consultation, Dr. Chen discusses these insights with Lisa, collaboratively deciding on changes to her management plan. The AI's data analysis allows for more personalized care and more time addressing Lisa's concerns about her diet and lifestyle.

Evening: An alert comes in about Mr. Johnson, an elderly patient with a heart condition. His implanted cardiac monitor has detected an irregularity. The AI has already analyzed the data and suggests, "Potential atrial fibrillation episode. Recommend immediate ECG and adjustment of anticoagulation therapy." Dr. Chen reviews the AI's analysis, initiates a video call with Mr. Johnson, explains the situation, orders necessary tests, and adjusts his medication. The AI's rapid analysis allows her to respond proactively, potentially preventing a more serious cardiac event.

End of Day: As Dr. Chen wraps up, she reflects on how AI analysis and pattern recognition allows her to focus on connecting with patients and providing compassionate, personalized care.

Conclusion

Crafting a compelling product vision is both an art and a science. It requires a deep understanding of your users, a clear view of the problems you're solving, and the creativity to imagine transformative solutions. In telemedicine, where the stakes are literally life and death, a powerful vision can inspire teams to create products that not only disrupt an industry but save and improve lives.

Remember, your vision is not set in stone. As you learn more about your users and the market evolves, don't be afraid to revisit and refine your vision. The best product visions are living documents that grow and adapt with your product and your users.

By avoiding common pitfalls, considering multiple personas, and vividly illustrating the future state through "Day in the Life" scenarios, you can create a product vision that guides your team towards creating truly transformative telemedicine solutions. Now, go forth and envision the future of your products!