Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber)

1. Define Your Product Vision

Develop a product vision that is lofty yet realistic, unconstrained by current technical limitations, and grounded in a clear, potent problem. This vision acts as a destination, guiding your team’s efforts and inspiring excitement.

2. Create an ‘Understand Work’ Doc

Maintain a living document titled ‘Top 10 Things You Should Know’ (or similar) listing the most critical problems with your product, including tech debt. Regularly update this document to ensure everyone on your team and key stakeholders are aligned on the core issues.

3. Practice Dogfooding and Catfooding

Consistently use your own product (‘dogfooding’) and competitor products (‘catfooding’) to build intuition and expose yourself to good product design. This helps refine your ‘product sense’ and deepens your understanding of user experience.

4. Use the ‘Once Upon a Time’ Vision Framework

Communicate your product vision using a simple narrative structure: ‘Once upon a time, [problem]… and because of that, [consequence]… and one day, [solution/vision]… and as a result, [new world state].’ This helps tell a compelling story.

5. Write a Future Press Release or Article

Draft a news article or TechCrunch headline (and potentially the full article) from the future, announcing the successful realization of your product vision. This forces clarity on the impact and helps socialize the idea.

6. Visualize Your Product Vision

Sketch or mock up what your product’s future state will look like, even if it’s low-fidelity (e.g., drawing on post-it notes or creating app store screenshots). This brings the narrative to life and makes the vision tangible for others.

7. Lead 3-Day Strategy Sessions

Conduct focused, multi-day strategy sessions (e.g., 3 days) with core leadership (product, engineering, design, research) to move from insights to strategy to big rocks. Dedicate the first day solely to understanding problems and insights.

8. Involve Stakeholders in Problem Definition

Bring in key stakeholders (marketing, comms, support) at the beginning of strategy sessions, asking them to provide their ‘Top 10 Things You Should Know’ about product problems. This ensures their perspectives are heard and fosters buy-in for the eventual vision.

9. Evangelize Vision in Concentric Circles

Share your vision starting with your core team, then expand to stakeholders, and finally to leadership. Make vision documents living, open for comments, and encourage friction to polish ideas, knowing that not everyone needs 100% certainty to get on board.

10. Craft a Clear Narrative Document

Create a concise (2-4 page) narrative document outlining your team’s insights, strategy (or approach), and ‘big rocks’ (3-5 key initiatives). This document serves as a foundational reference for onboarding, stakeholder alignment, and internal communication.

11. Prioritize with ‘Big Rocks’ Mentality

Focus your roadmap on a few ‘big rocks’ – the most impactful initiatives that solve core problems. Avoid spreading resources thin; prioritize the largest, most critical items first, and fill in smaller tasks around them.

12. Cultivate Clarity and Conviction

As a product manager, focus on bringing clarity to problems and having conviction in your proposed solutions. Force clarity by asking ‘what do you want me to do?’ in communications and by picking a lane when faced with multiple options.

13. Intentionally Evolve Team Culture

Actively define and evolve your team’s culture by discussing desired behaviors and norms. Reward good behaviors and address undesirable ones to ensure the culture serves the team’s goals and adapts to changing contexts.

14. Adopt an ‘Owner, Not a Renter’ Mindset

Empower individuals to act as owners of their decisions and responsibilities, fostering a ‘buck stops with you’ mentality. This encourages thoroughness and accountability, leading to stronger conviction in choices.

15. Identify the ‘Informed Captain’

For every major decision, clearly identify one ‘informed captain’ who is on the hook for that decision. This person gathers all context and input, makes the final call, and prevents decision-making by consensus that can lead to chaos.

16. Embrace Vulnerability as Strength

Foster a team environment where vulnerability is seen as a strength, recognizing the ‘human behind the role.’ This builds trust, encourages open feedback, and leads to stronger team collaboration and support.

17. Build Personal Relationships with Peers

Invest time in understanding your engineering manager and other partners as people, knowing their birthdays, work anniversaries, and career aspirations. Strong personal bonds enhance collaboration and make difficult conversations more productive.

18. Start Doing PM Work Before You Are a PM

If aspiring to be a product manager, begin practicing product sense by analyzing favorite apps, identifying their top problems, and sketching potential solutions. This builds practical skills and prepares you for opportunities.

19. Use AI for Content Inspiration

Leverage AI tools (like YouTube’s AI Inspiration feature) to generate ideas for content based on what your audience is watching and searching. This streamlines the creative process and helps identify relevant topics.

20. A/B Test Thumbnails

Utilize tools (like YouTube’s Thumbnail Test and Compare) to A/B test different thumbnails for your content. This data-driven approach helps optimize for engagement and discoverability.

21. Master Your Fate and Soul

Embrace the mindset that ‘I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.’ This powerful reminder encourages personal agency and responsibility for your actions and direction, even amidst challenges.