Product VP Challenge

What is the product VP challenge? If you are interested in this study, do not hesitate to read this. You can get more information from this article.

What is the Product VP Challenge?

A common question asked of product VPs is “What’s your team’s roadmap?” This question can be tough since product VPs aren’t always the ones who set the roadmap. 

The product VP challenge is to find an answer to that question that doesn’t just have you stuttering for words. In my experience, the most common response to that question is “It depends…”

Unfortunately, this is not a particularly helpful answer. It’s non-committal, and it doesn’t provide any value to the people who are asking you.

What Should the Product VP Say Instead?

The most valuable answer to that question is one that can be a template for a roadmap deck. The optimal answer tells your audience:

• high-level business priorities for the product, in broad terms.
• high-level themes for your next set of product releases, in broad terms.
• top user stories you’d like to accomplish in that period.
• an overall description of your next set of product releases, in general terms.

What’s the Big Idea?

Product VPs need to feel comfortable with their ability to answer this question. As a result, I’ve seen product VPs spend time working on a presentation that they are comfortable delivering. 

This presentation usually has an agenda and a set of slides that make sense to the audience that they are presenting to.

What’s the Problem?

Unfortunately, most product VPNs don’t have this luxury because they aren’t necessarily preparing this type of presentation for themselves. Instead, they are responding to an email or a meeting request where they are asked to provide an update on the product roadmap. 

They don’t have the time or opportunity to prepare a presentation. That leaves them with a few options:

• fumble their way through an answer if they have a very good memory, or 
• try to deliver a template-based roadmap at the moment (which is very hard).

What’s the Solution? 

There is a better way. I’ve worked with product VPs who can give good responses to this question. I’ve also worked with product VPs who aren’t so comfortable with answering this question. 

The Roadmap Template first contains a simple description of the product vision, which is a high-level description of the product’s purpose. Next, it should contain a list of high-level themes for the next few releases. 

This list should include stories and themes that will be used to communicate the product vision to the audience. Finally, it should contain a set of “user stories” that will be included in the product release.

How Can I Use This Template? 

First, find some time to sit down and think about what you want your presentation to look like. 

think about how you will describe your product vision and your high-level themes. Think about what you’ll say when you present those items to your audience.

Second, use this template as your starting point. Start with a simple description of your product vision and the high-level themes that you would like to present. Add a few user stories that you would like to accomplish in the next few releases. 

Finally, go back and fill in the gaps. Think about what else you might want to say as part of your presentation.

Conclusion

Remember, a product VP can answer any question about the roadmap. The key is that you have to be prepared to answer the question when it comes up. If you find yourself unprepared, take some time to think about the template that I described here.