Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision

Build a product vision your organization can take from strategy through execution.

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Contributors

Kieran Gobey, Senior Consultant Professional Services, Blueprint Software Systems
Rupert Kainzbauer, VP Product, Digital Wallets, Paysafe Group
Mike Starkey, Director of Engineering, W.W. Grainger
Hoi Kun Lo, Product Owner ,Nielsen
Yarrow Diamond, Sr. Director, Business Architecture, Financial Services
Emily Archer, Lead Business Analyst, Enterprise Consulting, authentic digital agency
Cari J. Faanes-Blakey, CBAP, PMI-PBA, Enterprise Business Systems Analyst, Vertex, Inc.
Vincent Mirabelli, Principal, Global Project Synergy Group
Brenda Peshak, Product Owner, Widget Industries, LLC
Saeed Khan, Founder, Transformation Labs
Jeff Meister, Technology Advisor and Product Leader
David Berg, Founder & CTO, Strainprint Technologies Inc.
Abhishek Mathur, Sr Director, Product Management, Kasisto, Inc.

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.

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.

Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision – Executive Brief

1. Define a digital product vision

Define a digital product vision that takes into account your objectives, business value, stakeholders, customers, and metrics.

2. Build a better backlog

Build a structure for your backlog that supports your product vision.

3. Build a product roadmap

Define standards, ownership for your backlog to effectively communicate your strategy in support of your digital product vision.

4. Release and deliver value

Understand what to consider when planning your next release.

5. Communicate the strategy – make it happen

Build a plan for communicating and updating your strategy and where to go next.

Guided Implementations

This guided implementation is a ten call advisory process.

Guided Implementation #1 - Define a digital product vision

Call #1 - Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges (identify potential participants).

Call #2 - First call with participants (introduce Phase 1 and assign exercises for completion as it pertains to the product canvas).

Call #3 - Review exercise outcomes (prepare for Phase 2 calls).

Guided Implementation #2 - Build a better backlog

Call #1 - Examine current backlog practices and assign exercises for completion.

Call #2 - Review exercise outcomes (prepare for Phase 3 calls).

Guided Implementation #3 - Build a product roadmap

Call #1 - Examine current roadmap practices and assign exercises for completion.

Call #2 - Review exercise outcomes (prepare for Phase 4 calls).

Guided Implementation #4 - Release and deliver value

Call #1 - Examine current release practices and discuss current techniques. Assign release canvas exercise(s).

Call #2 - Review results of release canvas exercise, identifying next steps.

Call #3 - Conduct closeout and communication call.

Book Your Workshop

Onsite 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 onsite 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.

Module 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

Outputs

1.1

Build out the elements of an effective digital product vision

Completed product vision definition for a familiar product via the product canvas

Module 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

Outputs

2.1

Introduction to key activities required to support your digital product vision

Articulate the activities required to support the population and validation of your backlog

2.2

What do we mean by a quality backlog?

An understanding of what it means to create a quality backlog (quality filters)

2.3

Explore backlog structure and standards

Defining the structural elements of your backlog that need to be considered

2.4

Define backlog data, content, and quality filters

Defining the content of your backlog and quality standards

Module 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

Outputs

3.1

Disambiguating backlogs vs. roadmaps

Understand the difference between a roadmap and a backlog

3.2

Defining audiences, accountability, and roadmap communications

Roadmap standards and agreed-to accountability for roadmaps

3.3

Exploring roadmap visualizations

Understand the different ways to visualize your roadmap and select what is relevant to your context

Module 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

Outputs

4.1

Lay out your release plan

Release canvas

4.2

How to introduce your product vision

An executive summary used to introduce other parties to your product vision

4.3

Communicate changes to your strategy

Specifics on communication of the changes to your roadmap

4.4

Where do we get started?

Your first step to getting started

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this Blueprint, and what our clients have to say.

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Workshop

10/10

N/A

Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications

Guided Implementation

9/10

$628K

While not necessarily the best part it was extremely helpful as to how flexible Info-Tech was in splitting up the one-day schedule into two half-days. This really helped people manage their schedules and be able to participate. It was also great how flex...

Quinnox Inc

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

I enjoyed the open, collaborative nature of the call. There was a clear desire from InfoTech to brainstorm and arrive at useful options. I also appreciate the email with all the embedded links - all of which I am sure will be very useful.

Ariens Company

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

This was a great presentation - but, i'm not sure how much it will save or how financially impactful it will be yet.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Workshop

10/10

$75,000

Adaptability shown was extremely great and appreciated. Level of organization was good and helped run smoothly Level of facilitation skills from both was amazing. Learnt some good facilitation skills for day-to-day meetings.

Sub-Zero Group, Inc.

Guided Implementation

10/10

$11,468

County of Tulare

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Alex and Allison were very knowledgeable on the blueprints both previously presented and the new one "Build a better Product Owner". They both gave me some great tips and information that I can use as actionable next steps to justify a Product Owner in ...

From Here On

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Guided Implementation

10/10

$25,000

Cascades, Centre des Technologies

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

State of Ohio - Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities

Guided Implementation

10/10

$100K

Being able to hold this session with all interested stakeholders in attendance was key. Need to get everyone on the same page regarding how our BAs and Developers will work together.

Alaska USA Federal Credit Union

Guided Implementation

8/10

$12,733

Best part is the conversation and the comprehensive playbooks. No worst part that I can think of.