Introduction
A successful product team starts with clarity: What is our vision? This seems like a simple question, yet many teams struggle to define a vision that truly guides decision-making. Too often, teams jump into brainstorming solutions without first aligning on the problems to solve or the outcomes to achieve. This leads to misalignment, wasted effort, and customer experiences that fail to meet customer needs.
Many large companies hire consulting agencies to help develop their product vision, which can be valuable but often comes with high costs and challenges in implementation. To provide an alternative, I’ve created a framework that empowers teams to take control of the process themselves—offering a simplified, actionable approach to self-serve vision development:
By following this approach, teams can maintain focus, drive meaningful impact, and create products that customers love.
Framework
Vision
- What value do/will we provide our customers?
- How will our customer experience exceed their expectations?
Gaps
- What are our gaps we need to solve for to reach our vision?
- What strategies could we employ?
Step 1: Define the Vision
A strong vision aligns teams, guides decision-making, and sets a clear direction for product development. It should answer three key questions: What value does our product deliver to customers? What future experience are we striving to create? And what business and customer outcomes define success?
Start by assessing the landscape. Review your company’s mission, market trends, and competitive positioning to identify key opportunities and challenges shaping your industry. Understanding these factors ensures that your vision is both ambitious and grounded in reality.
Next, collaborate with stakeholders to ensure alignment with broader business goals. Engaging cross-functional leaders and gathering diverse perspectives will help create a vision that resonates across teams. A strong vision isn’t developed in isolation—it should reflect the collective understanding of where the company is headed and why it matters.
Finally, craft a vision statement that is clear, compelling, and actionable. Define an aspirational future state that captures both customer needs and strategic priorities. A well-articulated vision serves as a north star, keeping teams focused, inspiring innovation, and providing a foundation for strategic decision-making.
Key Questions:
- What value does your product provide to customers?
- What outcomes do you want to achieve in three years?
- How will you measure success?
Methods:
- Stakeholder Interviews: Understand perspectives across teams
- Competitive Analysis: Identify differentiators
- Customer Value Mapping: Prioritize what matters most to customers
Example:
Imagine you’re leading a fintech product team focused on digital banking. A strong vision statement could be:
“Empowering customers to confidently grow their wealth through a frictionless, personalized digital investment experience that simplifies portfolio management and decision-making.”
Step 2: Identify Gaps
With a vision statement in place, the next step is to analyze the current state and identify the gaps preventing you from reaching it. These gaps typically fall into three categories: customer pain points, business constraints, and technology limitations. Understanding these barriers helps teams prioritize efforts and build a clear path forward.
Start by examining customer pain points—the frustrations users experience due to usability challenges, missing features, or friction in the overall experience. Direct feedback, support inquiries, and behavioral data can offer valuable insights into what’s holding customers back.
Beyond the customer experience, consider business constraints that may limit progress. A lack of resources, misaligned priorities, or internal inefficiencies can create roadblocks that need to be addressed for successful execution. Ensuring that business objectives support the vision is critical for long-term success.
Finally, evaluate technology limitations that could slow innovation. Outdated infrastructure, rigid systems, or technical debt may prevent teams from delivering on the vision efficiently. Identifying these barriers early allows for strategic planning to modernize and scale effectively.
By systematically assessing these gaps, teams can move beyond aspirational goals and develop actionable strategies to bridge the divide between vision and execution.
Key Questions:
- What’s preventing us from achieving our vision?
- Which CX gaps matter most to customers?
- What data do we need to validate our assumptions?
Methods
- Journey Mapping: Uncover pain points along the customer experience
- Jobs to Be Done Analysis: Identify unmet customer needs
- SWOT Analysis: Assess internal and external challenges
Example:
With the vision defined, a current state analysis of the current state customer experience identifies the key gaps (e.g. Customer, Business, & Technology) that prevent it from delivering the desired vision.
- Customer Pain Point: Customers frequently abandon the onboarding process due to its complex customer authentication process, leading to low authentication rates.
- Business Constraint: Compliance requirements mandate manual identity verification, slowing down approvals and frustrating new customers.
- Technology Limitation: The existing authentication system does not support biometric logins, making it difficult for customers to access their accounts quickly and securely.
Step 3: Defining the Strategic Path Forward
With gaps identified, the next step is developing actionable strategies to address them. Effective strategy development requires both “Need Capabilities” (the capabilities your organization must develop) and “Need to Believe” (the critical assumptions that must hold true for success). These tools help teams clarify priorities and align efforts toward a shared vision.
Key Questions
- What capabilities do we need to achieve our vision?
- What must be true for our strategy to succeed?
- Which strategic directions will drive the greatest impact?
- How do we balance quick wins with long-term goals?
Methods:
-
Define Need Capabilities & Need to Believe
- Identify the essential capabilities required for success.
- Articulate key assumptions that must hold true.
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Strategic Prioritization
- Use frameworks like RICE or an impact/effort matrix to evaluate trade-offs.
- Balance short-term improvements with long-term transformation.
-
Stakeholder Alignment
- Develop a strategic narrative that will build a shared understanding at the executive level through to all leadership levels.
Example:
With the gaps identified, the company defines the strategic direction using the “Need Capabilities” and “Need to Believe” framework:
Capability (1 example):
- Authenticate customers instantly within the onboarding flow.
Potential Solutions:
- Implement biometric authentication to streamline identity verification and reduce drop-off.
- Introduce a step-by-step onboarding progress tracker to increase transparency and guide users through the process.
- Automate parts of compliance verification to reduce the need for manual review.
Need to Believe Statement:
“If we simplify identity verification and provide clear onboarding guidance, more customers will complete the process, increasing activation rates and long-term engagement.”
Strategic Execution Plan:
- Short-Term: Launch biometric authentication and progress tracking in a pilot phase to measure impact.
- Long-Term: Invest in AI-driven compliance automation to further streamline onboarding.
