Step 1: Understand the Landscape and Trends

Conduct strategic research into your market, competitors, emerging tech and business model dynamics. This context grounds your vision in reality and not just hope and wishful thinking.

Step 2: Dive Deep into the Product’s Status Quo and the User’s Why

Audit what users love about your product offering and what frustrates them. Then run exploratory UX research: observe behaviors, motivations and uncover pain points in your product space. Don’t ask what they want and list feature ideas, watch what they do and really try to discover potential opportunities.

Step 3: Co‑Create a Vision Story

Host a cross-functional vision workshop. Look 2–3 years ahead and map out the entire user journey. Bring all your insights to the workshop and make them accessible to everyone beforehand. Also don't forget to mark where in the user journey your product has currently ist focus. Then either try to expand along the journey or get deeper into specific parts of the user journey. Based on this foundation co-create a story together that’s bold, but also believable.

Check out Jared Spool's post on Vision Stories and how to craft compelling user-centered future narratives

Step 4: Make the Vision Tangible and Tie It to Strategy

Develop a vision prototype with your best designers and engineers. It doesn’t need to be perfect—just real enough to spark imagination. Link it explicitly to strategic outcomes, KPIs and business benefits.

Check out Marty Cagan’s “visiontypes” post on why prototypes of vision are powerful tools to make your vision tangible and effective.

Step 5: Bring the Vision to Your Day‑to‑Day Work

Here are some final tipps on how to bring your vision then to reality.

• Share it widely and often, don’t treat it as a one-time presentation thing.

• Embed it in planning rituals, roadmap conversations and project scoping.

• Set strategic guardrails: principles and metrics that steer decisions and serve towards the vision.

• If it’s too big or current teams are stuck in sprint cycles or lack needed skills, you'd consider creating a dedicated product team to focus on it.

One powerful blueprint comes from Ebi Atawodi, (at this time) Director of Product at YouTube Studio. In her #mtpcon 2025 keynote, she emphasized purposeful visioning with cross-functional clarity and shared a compelling playbook to concretize and sustain a vision over time.

Final Thought

Product Visions aren't about dreaming and wishful thinking. It’s a strategic foundation that guides teams, inspires action and makes sure that you're together working into an aligned and right direction.

Resources & Inspiration

• The Power of Visiontypes - Marty Cagan / SVPG: On vision prototypes that shape real, believable futures

• How to Craft a Product Vision - Ebi Atawodi @ #mtpcon 2025: Breaks down imagination + structure in visioning

• 7 Steps to Improve Your Visionary Thinking - Forbes: How to cultivate your visionary thinking skills as a leader

• The Experience Vision - Jared Spool: Explains what makes experience visions so powerful

Quick Links to Tools

If you're lacking a great designer or the needed design skills and want to move fast, then try out one of these AI-powered tools to help.