Creating a product vision is only half the battle; its impact comes from relentless distribution. Proactively schedule presentations at all-hands, design reviews, and team meetings. If you don't actively share the work, it's as if it never happened.
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A product roadmap's value is in the planning process and aligning the team on a vision, not in rigidly adhering to a delivery schedule. The co-founder of Artist argues that becoming a feature factory focused on checking boxes off a roadmap is a dangerous trap that distracts from solving real customer problems.
Only showing the final, polished product makes others feel inadequate and behind. More importantly, it prevents you from building an engaged audience by not sharing the journey. Sharing mistakes, pivots, and behind-the-scenes struggles gives others permission to start messy and builds their curiosity for your eventual launch.
Bupa's Head of Product Teresa Wang requires her team to explain their work and its value to non-technical people within three minutes. This forces clarity, brevity, and a focus on the 'why' and 'so what' rather than the technical 'how,' ensuring stakeholders immediately grasp the concept and its importance.
To increase the "memobility" of your ideas so they can spread without you, package them into concise frameworks, diagrams, and stories. This helps others grasp and re-transmit your concepts accurately, especially when you can connect a customer pain to a business problem.
Go beyond visual roadmaps. Create a monthly written document for executives that explains *why* the roadmap changed, details priorities, and includes data from recent launches. This forces intentionality, builds trust, and fosters deeper, more accountable conversations with leadership.
The GM of Spiral felt demotivated and his product stagnated because he didn't personally use it or believe in its vision. The breakthrough came when he pivoted to solve a problem he genuinely cared about鈥攎aking AI a tool for better thinking, not just faster content production.
Creating products customers love is only half the battle. Product leaders must also demonstrate and clearly communicate the product's business impact. This ability to speak to financial outcomes is crucial for getting project approval and necessary budget.
Instead of debating individual features, establish a clear "perspective" for your product. Artist's perspective as a "push-based product for quick insights" makes it easy to reject requests that don't align, like building an in-house video hosting tool. This aligns the entire organization and simplifies the roadmap.
Instead of relying on documents and KPIs, which can be misinterpreted, Shopify's design team creates tangible, visual 'North Stars.' This allows stakeholders across the company to have a concrete and rich debate about future direction, transforming design into a strategic alignment tool.
The number one reason design-led product visions fail is the exclusion of product management. Since design doesn't typically own the roadmap, involving product partners from the very beginning is critical for buy-in and ensuring the vision doesn't become a useless artifact.