- Product organizations are under pressure to align the value they provide to the organization’s goals and overall company vision.
- You need to clearly convey your direction, strategy, and tactics to gain alignment, support, and funding from your organization.
- Products require continuous additions and enhancements to sustain their value. This requires detailed, yet simple communication to a variety of stakeholders.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- A vision without tactics is an unsubstantiated dream, while tactics without a vision is working without a purpose. You need to have a handle on both to achieve outcomes that are aligned with the needs of your organization.
Impact and Result
- Recognize that a vision is only as good as the data that backs it up – lay out a comprehensive backlog with quality built-in that can be effectively communicated and understood through roadmaps.
- Your intent is only a dream if it cannot be implemented – define what goes into a release plan via the release canvas.
- Define a communication approach that lets everyone know where you are heading.
Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision Research & Tools
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a digital product vision that you can stand behind. Review Info-Tech’s methodology and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
- Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision – Phases 1-5
1. Define a digital product vision
Define a digital product vision that takes into account your objectives, business value, stakeholders, customers, and metrics.
- Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision – Phase 1: Define a Digital Product Vision
- Digital Product Strategy Template
- Digital Product Strategy Supporting Workbook
2. Build a better backlog
Build a structure for your backlog that supports your product vision.
- Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision – Phase 2: Build a Better Backlog
- Product Backlog Item Prioritization Tool
3. Build a product roadmap
Define standards, ownership for your backlog to effectively communicate your strategy in support of your digital product vision.
- Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision – Phase 3: Build a Product Roadmap
- Product Roadmap Tool
4. Release and deliver value
Understand what to consider when planning your next release.
- Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision – Phase 4: Release and Deliver Value
5. Communicate the strategy – make it happen
Build a plan for communicating and updating your strategy and where to go next.
- Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision – Phase 5: Communicate the Strategy – Make It Happen!
Infographic
Workshop: Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
1 Define a Digital Product Vision
The Purpose
Understand the elements of a good product vision and the pieces that back it up.
Key Benefits Achieved
Provide a great foundation for an actionable vision and goals people can align to.
Activities
1.1 Build out the elements of an effective digital product vision
Outputs
Completed product vision definition for a familiar product via the product canvas
2 Build a Better Backlog
The Purpose
Define the standards and approaches to populate your product backlog that support your vision and overall strategy.
Key Benefits Achieved
A prioritized backlog with quality throughout that enables alignment and the operationalization of the overall strategy.
Activities
2.1 Introduction to key activities required to support your digital product vision
2.2 What do we mean by a quality backlog?
2.3 Explore backlog structure and standards
2.4 Define backlog data, content, and quality filters
Outputs
Articulate the activities required to support the population and validation of your backlog
An understanding of what it means to create a quality backlog (quality filters)
Defining the structural elements of your backlog that need to be considered
Defining the content of your backlog and quality standards
3 Build a Product Roadmap
The Purpose
Define standards and procedures for creating and updating your roadmap.
Key Benefits Achieved
Enable your team to create a product roadmap to communicate your product strategy in support of your digital product vision.
Activities
3.1 Disambiguating backlogs vs. roadmaps
3.2 Defining audiences, accountability, and roadmap communications
3.3 Exploring roadmap visualizations
Outputs
Understand the difference between a roadmap and a backlog
Roadmap standards and agreed-to accountability for roadmaps
Understand the different ways to visualize your roadmap and select what is relevant to your context
4 Define Your Release, Communication, and Next Steps
The Purpose
Build a release plan aligned to your roadmap.
Key Benefits Achieved
Understand what goes into defining a release via the release canvas.
Considerations in communication of your strategy.
Understand how to frame your vision to enable the communication of your strategy (via an executive summary).
Activities
4.1 Lay out your release plan
4.2 How to introduce your product vision
4.3 Communicate changes to your strategy
4.4 Where do we get started?
Outputs
Release canvas
An executive summary used to introduce other parties to your product vision
Specifics on communication of the changes to your roadmap
Your first step to getting started