A product vision board is ideal for a wide diversity of purposes. Organizations that use them are normally familiar with many of the different benefits that comes from implementing these types of processes and procedures into their operations.
The Benefits of a Product Vision Board
Helps to Provide a Guide for Product Managers
Typically, a product strategy is normally a conglomeration of many months of both marketing research along with a team of professional’s business analysis. The information that they gather is meant to be reliable, factual, and available to be implemented on schedule or as needed.
However, when the product is being created in a dynamic and agile environment, the strategy for the product will normally fare much better when it is created differently. For instance, the product manager along with the team that is assigned should make sure that they are starting with the basis of the idea. This part of the process is normally done by stating the actual vision behind its concept and then capturing their initial strategies before moving forward.
The vision board is also great for making sure that everyone is confident with the process that is being used, specifically since the this process involves repeating these process over and over again.
Focuses the Product Manager’s Team on the Parts of the Vision that Matters the Most
While the term product strategy can mean a wide variety of different things to different groups of people, it is also important to note that many of the strategies used today may come in numerous shapes and sizes.
Even though this may be perfectly fine in different situations, everyone involved in a vision board will have to focus on the initiatives that matters most. For example, it is important for these teams of professionals to center their efforts on the actual market that should be targeted, its value proposition, all of its unique selling points as well as the business overall mission and goals. In fact, this is normally where the Product Vision Board works best. As it is used to identify the simplest ways possible that will work to capture its vision and product strategy.
Clearly States the Major Problems and Benefits
Once the product manager and the team assigned have captured their target users and/or customers, the next step in this process will allow everyone to describe their specific needs. By doing this step in the process in advance, everybody on the team will have an opportunity to consider why the target groups and customers identified would want to purchase as well or use the product that they are trying to market.
For instance, the team should look for the best ways to identify the problems that their products will solve. In some of these cases, the product may help to eliminate pain or discomfort will when it is being developed for various kinds of medical or physical needs. Or, the team may look at the product to determine if there are various kinds of tangible benefits. Whatever the case or situation, the team can do a better job of deploying a new product when they can tell their customers what the product does and why it is beneficial to them as an individual or as a whole when applying it to a group.
Additionally, when the product manager uses the vision board to design a strategy, they can also extract and identify numerous needs, as they then determine both the main problems and the main benefits of the new product .
For instance, by placing the main problems and benefits at the top of the section to be discussed by all involved, it will help the group to test their ideas out and then create a value proposition that is convincing for its overall development. This is critical to the success of the product and its design, especially because it helps with clearly describing the main problems and the associated benefits, Thereby, eliminating the question, why should people buy the product that they are considering?
Provides a Way to Identify Revenue Stream and Associated Cost Factors
Because the vision board is very simplistic, it is an excellent asset and tool that can be used to identify the product’s potential revenue stream. In order to accomplish this objective, however, some product managers may have to expand the vision board to accommodate this specific section for review.
For instance, the product manager may want to add this and other sections that will include a diversity of cost factors, revenue sources and other criterion that can be tracked as the project team progresses through its development. This section will assist the company with making sure the product can be funded appropriately over time. Specifically, if the product’s financial investment resource numbers will quickly supersede any and all associated costs for product design and development.
Helps the Team with Describing the Essence of the Product
Another great benefit to using the vision board is it provides the product manager with a platform that can be used to document a description of the actual product idea. Oftentimes one of the biggest challenges in developing a new product is describing what the actual product is and how it should be used. Fortunately, by using the vision board and the associated features, revealing the essence of the product can be done by stating 3 to 5 key features of the product that is being proposed.
For instance, the team should be aware of the top features that will make the actual product desirable so that it will set apart from their competitors. It is also important to note that capturing that product functionality as well as the nonfunctional qualities like performance and interoperability should be a major part of the visual design process.
A vision board is idea for many different situations. This is one of the main reasons why this kind of strategic process is incorporated into an operation’s product development initiatives. As there are many great benefits to incorporating a product vision board into a new product idea, it is essential for the project manager and the assigned team to understand what they are and how to take advantage of each of them when getting started.
