A joyful writing process for your Product Vision
Switch more seamlessly between creative thinking and critical thinking
The first time I tried to write a product vision I hoped that by spending lots of time writing I’d end up with something wonderful. I spent long, intense days writing and finished with this horrendous twenty page document. It wasn’t inspiring, it wasn’t compelling and it wasn’t clear.
The thing is, I knew I wasn’t aiming for a twenty page document. We’re lucky to have great examples* of product visions to get inspired. I made the mistake that you just write and write, without any semblance of process or structure, and a vision will magically appear.
Since then I’ve written more successful product visions, but it’s been working as a coach where I’ve really started to appreciate the importance and joy of a good writing process. There are two reasons for this:
I get to see a lot of vision writing, and see things that work and things that don’t. Most people only write a vision once every few years.
I have a unique perspective where I’m less emotionally involved, so I can more easily notice when a different type of thinking (creative vs critical) or different level of thinking (in the details vs zoom out) is needed.
I don’t follow an explicit structure when coaching, but one has started to emerge and I’ve written it down in this post so you can work through it in your own time. I think it can work really well without a coach, it would definitely have helped me back when I wrote that first painful product vision. As with any framework, hold this approach loosely.
Summary of the approach
For a joyful writing process, break it down into three steps.
Write a Q&A document: write down a list of questions you need to answer to build out your vision, and challenge yourself to answer every question - bring in research/data where you can - and give an opinion where it’s needed.
Decide themes: Synthesise the long and comprehensive Q&A doc to a few key themes and bullet points. This is the “skeleton” of your vision.
Bring the vision to life: Write the vision in its final form - bring in stories, full sentences, and visuals.
Within each step you alternate between being creative and giving yourself space to write without judgement, and then being discerning and critiquing what you’ve created so far.
The rest of this post will go through each step in detail, with lots of examples. When using this approach writing a vision will still feel hard, it requires deep and original thought, but it’s not harder than it needs to be.
*Four examples that I refer to regularly in the post are: Monzo, Tesla, Wise, Stripe.
1️⃣ Write a Q&A document
💡 Creative thinking
Start by writing down a list of questions that you need to answer to start building your product vision. I’d write down all the questions you think you need to answer, even if they overlap. The questions will probably fall into two categories:
Foundational questions around your customers, problems you solve today and problems you think you should solve in the future. Example of some foundational questions:
Who is our customer today & does this change in the future?
What value does our product provide today?
Where and how do we want to add more value in those areas in the future?
What are new areas we could explore? (Either problems to solve or potential solutions)
What are some principles or values that underpin everything that we do? (can include aspirational values)
What makes us different from other products in a similar space?
What are our strengths as a product team?
How do we want to make a difference?
Specific questions that are often asked at your company. Example of (imagined) company specific questions:
Monzo: “Should we go into crypto?”
Wise: “Should we offer a premium tier”
Tesla: “Where do self-driving cars come into this?”
Stripe: “Should we build tools specifically for the creator economy?”
A few tips for this stage:
Don’t spend too much time perfecting your question list, you can always add more later.
Get writing quickly and challenge yourself to write a draft answer to every single question.
Where ideas are needed: challenge yourself to create and generate multiple options. Ask yourself “what else?”
🧠 Critical thinking
Once you have your first draft of questions, I put on my critical thinking hat. I firstly think about where I need to add in evidence, and where I need to give opinions:
Evidence: Where you have research and data to back up your answer - reference this and bring in evidence where you can.
Opinions: For future focused questions (e.g. product areas you will play in, in the future) include the long list of options, and then start to prioritise, giving your opinion.
I will then go through and challenge and critique my thinking so far.
Where have I made assumptions? What can I do to test those assumptions?
Where is a certain viewpoint or decision low in conviction? What do I need to reflect on to build conviction in a viewpoint?
What open questions remain once I read over everything?
Keep going between creative and critical thinking mode, until you feel confident that your answers are clear and convincing.
2️⃣ Decide key themes
💡 Creative thinking
You’ve done a lot of thinking at this point - building conviction in viewpoints, starting to converge on product principles - but you’ve probably got this written out in a lengthy and dense document.
You want to start pulling out the key “themes” of your vision. I’d do this as a set of bullet points of key things that need to be included. You’re not looking to write full sentences or bring in visuals or stories at this point.
For Monzo, the skeleton version of the vision would look like:
Now: quick control, improve budgeting, no unfair fees
Future: very central to people’s finances & remove admin
Ideas of how to do this: energy bill swapping, car tax renewal
Customers: our customers are global and we put a big emphasis on inclusion and serving typically underserved groups of customers
Product values: delightful product experience, human help, feedback loop within product
Company values: only benefit when customer’s do (not just about grinding out a profit)
If you’re finding yourself stuck at this stage, a few tips for getting creative:
Take a blank piece of paper and draw / sketch out your main themes.
Do this without your laptop / lots of information surrounding you.
Don’t put too much pressure on the first version, just get writing and sketching quickly.
Try out multiple versions, over a couple of days and in different environments.
🧠 Critical thinking
Once you have the key themes doc, you want to go back into critical thinking mode and start critiquing what’s written down. Questions that might help you at this stage:
Is it clear what we’re saying yes to, and why?
Is it clear what makes us different?
Does this feel coherent? Do I have conviction in these themes?
Am I left with questions?
Does this make business sense?
This will likely give you some pointers for where you need to go back to the drawing board and add, or remove, from your key themes doc.
3️⃣ Bring the vision to life
💡 Creative thinking
Now is the time to start bringing your vision to life - writing in full sentences, bringing in stories and adding visuals. If you’re lucky you might get to collaborate with a copy writer or visual designer at this point.
A few points on things to aim for:
Write in 2nd person (you ) - it feels really effective when you direct this to the customer
Bring in storytelling - tell a story about a customer in the future
Write with clarity - there should be no ambiguity or loose language here
I’d expect to write 2-3 versions of this. If it’s your first time writing in this style, the first version will likely be weak. Don’t worry about that! As with each creative stage: get writing and sketching quickly, put judgment to one side, and try out a few drafts.
🧠 Critical thinking
This is your final round of editing. The questions that might help you edit at this stage:
If I put myself in the customer’s shoes, does this feel exciting?
If I put myself in our investors shoes, does this make business sense?
Does this feel ambitious enough?
Does this feel coherent?
I expect you will be sharing this fairly widely at this point and getting feedback from your team and peers, as well as your own critique. This will give you some clear pointers on what could be improved or changing. Circle back to creative thinking, focusing on the specific parts of your vision that need some more work.
Closing thoughts
This approach is designed to help you switch more seamlessly between creative thinking and critical thinking, and different levels of abstraction. I see so many people get caught up word-smithing before they’ve made important decisions about the future of the product, or getting writers block because they’re judging ideas before they get written, or worrying about visuals before the key themes of the product vision are clear. Don’t make that mistake. Be intentional about the mode you’re in, and the zoom level you’re at.
A final set of tips for you:
Collaborate: Bring people in every step along this journey. Be clear with your ask - are you asking them to contribute ideas? Give feedback? Challenge your viewpoint?
Focus time: Get yourself some regular focus time in the diary to work on this.
Separate locations for writing and editing: I have separate time blocks for creating/writing and editing. I even try to do these in different locations e.g. kitchen for writing, cafe for editing.
Start writing early: Don’t spend ages on heavy processes and planning, get writing early. And be ok with some laughable first answers or first drafts.
Know when to take a break: If you’re finding yourself going in circles, or feeling completely stuck, come back to this the next day.
And finally - have fun! This is some of the most creative and joyful work you can do as a product leader.
Working with me
I coach founders and product leaders at early stage tech companies. I partner with you to help you become a more impactful, confident and fulfilled leader. You can read more about how I work and get in touch here.