Product Vision

# Create a "Product Vision" AI Skill

I want you to help me set up a reusable AI skill that I can use in future conversations. Read the complete skill definition below, then help me install it.

## Complete Skill Definition

# Product Vision Expert

## Overview

The Product Vision is the narrative that sits above the north-star metric. It is the answer to "where are we going and why" -- the story that aligns engineers, designers, marketers, executives, and customers around a single point on the horizon. Without a vision, teams optimize local metrics; with a vision, teams optimize toward a shared destination.

A vision is *not* a mission statement, *not* a strategy, *not* a roadmap. A mission says why the company exists. A strategy says how the company will win. A roadmap says what will ship next quarter. A vision says where the product will be in 5-10 years -- specific enough to inspire engineering decisions today, ambitious enough to outlast any current technology or market condition.

This skill produces the Product Vision document across four canonical formats: Roman Pichler's **Product Vision Board** (one-page diagnostic), Geoffrey Moore's **elevator pitch** (single-sentence positioning from *Crossing the Chasm*), Andy Raskin's **strategic narrative** (5-act story arc used by Salesforce, Drift, Andreessen-backed companies), and Marty Cagan's **10-year horizon** (long-form Cagan-style vision narrative). It also provides a review checklist for testing whether a vision actually works.

### When to Use

- **New product launch.** You are starting a new product and need to articulate the destination before committing engineering quarters.
- **Major pivot.** The team's direction has shifted and the old vision no longer fits. Reset.
- **Strategy reset.** Annual or pre-funding-round refresh of the long-term direction.
- **Stakeholder misalignment.** Engineering, design, and exec teams are pulling in different directions. A re-articulated vision often surfaces the disagreement.
- **Hiring at scale.** You need a vision compelling enough that prospective hires can decide whether to join. Vague visions repel strong talent.

## Vision vs. Mission vs. Strategy vs. Roadmap

| Layer | Question Answered | Time Horizon | Example |
|-------|---------------------|---------------|---------|
| **Mission** | Why does the company exist? | Indefinite | "Bring the best user experience to its customers through innovative hardware, software, and services." (Apple) |
| **Vision** | Where is the product going in 5-10 years? | 5-10 years | "Every finance team closes the books in under 2 days with zero manual reconciliation." |
| **Strategy** | How will we win? | 2-3 years | "Land in mid-market B2B SaaS via the Stripe ecosystem, expand to ERP integrations, eventually serve enterprise." |
| **Roadmap** | What ships next? | 1 quarter to 1 year | "Q3: Xero integration. Q4: Audit log export. Q1: Multi-entity reconciliation." |

Confusing the layers is the most common vision failure. A "vision" that says "launch SSO in Q4" is a roadmap item. A "vision" that says "we exist to empower finance teams" is a mission statement.

The Product Vision lives in the second row -- specific enough to direct engineering choices today, abstract enough to outlast any single feature.

## Framework 1: Roman Pichler's Product Vision Board

The Product Vision Board is a one-page canvas with five blocks. It is the fastest way to draft a working vision before committing to a longer narrative.

```
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| VISION                                                       |
| One sentence: the destination in 5-10 years                  |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| TARGET AUDIENCE  | NEEDS         | PRODUCT        | BUSINESS  |
| Who is this for? | What jobs and | What is the    | GOALS     |
|                  | pains does it | product (3-5   | How does  |
|                  | address?      | key features)? | it create |
|                  |               |                | value for |
|                  |               |                | us?       |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
```

**Vision** (the single sentence at the top):

Format: "Help [target audience] [verb] [outcome] so that [bigger outcome]."

Example: "Help finance teams close the books in under 2 days with zero manual reconciliation so that finance becomes a strategic function rather than a clerical bottleneck."

**Target Audience:**

- Primary segment(s) by job-to-be-done, not demographics
- The most acute version of the pain (not "everyone in finance" -- "finance leads at 100-500 person B2B SaaS who close monthly")

**Needs:**

- Top 3-5 jobs, pains, gains from the Customer Profile (`discovery/value-proposition-canvas/`)
- The needs are the customer's, not the product's

**Product:**

- Top 3-5 capabilities (not features -- capabilities)
- Each capability addresses one or more needs

**Business Goals:**

- How the product creates value for the company
- 2-4 long-term goals (ARR target, market position, strategic moat)

## Framework 2: Geoffrey Moore's Elevator Pitch

From *Crossing the Chasm*. A single-sentence positioning statement that forces specificity.

```text
For [target customer]
who [statement of need or opportunity],
[product name] is a [product category]
that [statement of key benefit -- compelling reason to buy].
Unlike [primary competitive alternative],
our product [statement of primary differentiation].
```

Example:

> "For finance teams at 100-500 person B2B SaaS companies who lose 11 hours per close to manual reconciliation, Reconcile is a payment-data reconciliation platform that delivers a 2-day close with full audit traceability. Unlike spreadsheet-based reconciliation, Reconcile produces an audit-ready trail automatically and scales to 100K transactions per close."

**Use this format when:** You need a position statement for marketing, sales, board decks, or hiring conversations. The elevator pitch is the vision *compressed* -- if you cannot write the pitch, the vision is not yet sharp.

## Framework 3: Andy Raskin's Strategic Narrative

Andy Raskin's narrative framework (used by Salesforce, Drift, Yammer, Zuora) structures the vision as a 5-act story. The form is borrowed from screenwriting; the effect is that the audience identifies with the customer as protagonist and the product as the tool that helps them win.

**The 5 acts:**

1. **Name the undeniable change in the world.** A shift that everyone in the audience recognizes is real. ("Finance is being asked to be strategic, but spends 60% of its time on manual reconciliation.")
2. **Show the winners and losers of that change.** Who is benefiting? Who is being left behind? ("Finance teams who automate are seen as strategic partners. Teams stuck on spreadsheets are seen as cost centers.")
3. **Tease the promised land.** A future state that resonates emotionally. ("Imagine a finance function that closes in 2 days and spends 60% of its time on forward-looking analysis.")
4. **Identify the obstacles to the promised land.** Why is it hard to get there? ("Existing tools assume you have one payment processor. Reality: most companies have 3-7. No tool reconciles across them.")
5. **Position your product as the magic gift that overcomes the obstacles.** ("Reconcile unifies reconciliation across every payment processor, GL, and ERP -- so finance teams can finally make the leap.")

**Use this format when:** You need a vision narrative for sales pitches, board meetings, all-hands talks, or fundraising. The Raskin narrative is *emotional* in a way the Pichler board is not.

## Framework 4: Cagan's 10-Year Horizon

Marty Cagan (*Inspired*, *Empowered*) argues that a product vision should look 10 years into the future, not 1-3. The 10-year horizon does three things:

1. **Forces abstraction from current technology.** What you build in 10 years cannot rely on today's stack assumptions.
2. **Outlasts strategy cycles.** Strategy shifts every 2-3 years; vision endures.
3. **Aligns hiring and architecture.** A 10-year vision shapes who you hire and how you build.

**Cagan's vision document structure:**

- **The world in [current year + 10]** -- describe the customer's world in the future
- **The role of the product in that world** -- how the product fits
- **The capabilities required** -- what the product must be able to do
- **The path to get there** -- 3-4 phases over 10 years
- **What stays true** -- principles and values that will not change

**Use this format when:** You are building a 100+ person product organization; you are setting up multi-year architectural bets; you are recruiting executives or senior engineers who need to see the trajectory.

## Amazon Working Backwards: The Future Press Release

Amazon's Working Backwards method (paired with the FAQ) treats the vision as a *future press release* announcing the product as if it already shipped. This forces clarity on customer value before any implementation.

The PR/FAQ is covered as a standalone skill at `execution/prfaq/` -- but the vision document often *includes* a working-backwards PR as the centerpiece.

**Use when:** You want the vision to land with concrete customer outcomes, not abstract aspiration.

## The Vision Review Checklist

Before publishing the vision, test it against the following criteria. Score each on a 1-5 scale.

### Inspiring
- [ ] Does the vision describe a state of the world that engineers, designers, and PMs would want to bring into being?
- [ ] Would a strong candidate read this and want to interview?
- [ ] Does it survive a "so what?" test?

### Concrete
- [ ] Does it name a specific customer (segment, job)?
- [ ] Does it name a specific outcome (measurable in some form)?
- [ ] Is it specific enough that a roadmap decision today can be tested against it ("does this Q3 work move us toward the vision?")?

### Durable
- [ ] Does it survive a major technology shift (LLMs, distributed systems, web standards)?
- [ ] Does it survive a re-positioning in the market?
- [ ] Is it free of feature names that will be retired?

### Differentiated
- [ ] Could the vision belong to a competitor? If yes, it is not differentiated.
- [ ] Does it name what makes our path different from the alternatives?

### Memorable
- [ ] Can a team member repeat it from memory after one read?
- [ ] Is it a sentence or two -- not a paragraph?

If any category scores below 3, return to the framework and rewrite.

## Worked Example: Reconcile (B2B Finance SaaS)

### Pichler Board

| Block | Content |
|-------|---------|
| **Vision** | Help finance teams close the books in under 2 days with zero manual reconciliation, so finance becomes a strategic function rather than a clerical bottleneck. |
| **Target Audience** | Finance leads at 100-500 person B2B SaaS companies who close monthly across 3+ payment processors |
| **Needs** | Reconcile payments to GL accurately; produce audit-ready trail; eliminate the 11-hour-per-close manual matching tax |
| **Product** | Multi-processor reconciliation engine; rule-based matching; automated audit log; ERP integrations; Slack/email alerts |
| **Business Goals** | $20M ARR by year 3; category leadership in mid-market finance ops; expansion to multi-entity in year 4 |

### Moore Elevator Pitch

"For finance teams at 100-500 person B2B SaaS companies who lose 11 hours per close to manual reconciliation, Reconcile is a payment-data reconciliation platform that delivers a 2-day close with full audit traceability. Unlike spreadsheet-based reconciliation, Reconcile produces an audit-ready trail automatically and scales to 100K transactions per close."

### Raskin Strategic Narrative (compressed)

1. **The change:** Finance is being asked to be strategic. But it spends 60% of its time on manual reconciliation.
2. **Winners and losers:** Finance teams who automate are seen as strategic partners. Teams stuck on spreadsheets are seen as cost centers.
3. **Promised land:** A finance function that closes in 2 days and spends its time on analysis, forecasting, and partnership with the business.
4. **Obstacles:** Existing tools assume one payment processor. Real businesses have 3-7. No tool reconciles across them with audit traceability.
5. **The gift:** Reconcile unifies reconciliation across every payment processor, GL, and ERP -- with a full audit trail. Finance teams finally make the leap.

### Cagan 10-Year Horizon (abbreviated)

**The world in 2036:** Finance functions at sub-Series-D companies are predominantly forward-looking. Close happens continuously in the background. Reconciliation is a solved problem. Finance leaders are partners in strategy, not gatekeepers of accuracy.

**The product's role:** Reconcile is the layer that makes continuous close possible. It connects every payment system to every accounting and ERP system, with explainable matching and complete auditability -- across multi-entity, multi-currency, multi-jurisdiction.

**Capabilities required by 2036:** Real-time matching at any volume; explainable AI for rule discovery; multi-entity / multi-currency support; auditor-friendly explanations; API-first integrations with every accounting system.

**Path to get there:**
- **Years 1-2:** Win mid-market B2B SaaS with single-entity reconciliation.
- **Years 3-5:** Expand to multi-entity and enterprise; deepen ERP integrations.
- **Years 6-8:** Launch continuous-close capabilities; explainable rule learning.
- **Years 9-10:** Become the default reconciliation layer for the sub-Series-D market.

**What stays true:** Auditor-grade explainability. Customer trust in the matching output. Engineering rigor on financial correctness.

## Workflow

1. **Gather inputs.** Customer interviews (`discovery/customer-interview-script/`), jobs hierarchy (`discovery/jtbd-workshop/`), value proposition canvas (`discovery/value-proposition-canvas/`), competitive landscape.
2. **Pick a starting format.** New product: start with Pichler Board (fastest). Strategy reset: start with Raskin narrative (most emotional). Multi-year planning: start with Cagan 10-year (most enduring).
3. **Draft the first format.** 2-4 hours with the product trio (PM + Design + Eng) plus 1 exec.
4. **Translate into a second format.** A vision that survives translation is sharp. A vision that requires explanation to make sense in a second format needs more work.
5. **Run the Vision Review Checklist.** Score each category 1-5. Rewrite anything under 3.
6. **Test with 3 internal audiences.** A senior engineer, a designer, and an account executive. Each should be able to repeat the vision and answer "what would you build differently because of this?"
7. **Test with 2 customers.** Show the elevator pitch or 1-paragraph narrative. Their response should be "this is for me" or "this is not for me" -- not "I don't understand."
8. **Publish.** Commit the vision document. Make it the first link in onboarding docs, the cover slide of strategy decks, and the opening line of customer pitches.
9. **Revisit annually.** Vision drift happens. Schedule an annual vision review.

## Troubleshooting

| Symptom | Likely Cause | Resolution |
|---------|-------------|------------|
| Vision sounds like a mission statement ("we exist to empower...") | Confused vision with mission; vision needs a destination, not a purpose | Add a specific customer + outcome + time horizon (10 years) |
| Vision sounds like a roadmap ("ship SSO and audit logs") | Confused vision with roadmap; vision is durable, roadmap is quarterly | Strip feature names; describe the future state of the customer, not the product backlog |
| Vision could belong to a competitor | Not differentiated; describes the category, not the company's path | Add what makes our approach distinct -- the obstacle we solve that others do not |
| Engineers and PMs disagree on what the vision means | Vision is too abstract to direct decisions | Rewrite with concrete customer + outcome; test that a Q3 roadmap decision can be evaluated against the vision |
| New hires cannot repeat the vision after one read | Vision is too long or jargon-heavy | Compress to one sentence (Moore pitch); cut buzzwords |
| Sales team uses a different positioning than the vision | Vision and go-to-market never aligned | Translate the vision into a Raskin narrative; rebuild sales talk tracks from that narrative |
| Vision feels stale after one quarter | Treated as a one-shot artifact; never revisited | Schedule annual vision review; flag drift when strategy shifts |

## Success Criteria

- Vision document includes at least 2 of 4 formats (Pichler, Moore, Raskin, Cagan)
- One-sentence vision (Moore pitch) fits on a sticky note and survives memorization test
- Vision Review Checklist scored, with all categories >= 3
- Vision tested with at least 3 internal audiences (engineer, designer, AE) and 2 customers
- Roadmap decisions traceable to the vision ("this Q3 work moves us toward [vision component]")
- Vision document is the first link in new-hire onboarding
- Annual vision review scheduled with named owner

## Scope & Limitations

**In Scope:**
- Vision document drafting across 4 frameworks (Pichler, Moore, Raskin, Cagan)
- Vision Review Checklist for inspiring, concrete, durable, differentiated, memorable criteria
- Worked examples and templates for each format
- Translation between formats (e.g., Pichler -> Moore elevator pitch)
- Integration with downstream artifacts (north-star metric, OKRs, roadmap, PRDs)

**Out of Scope:**
- Mission statement writing (different artifact, different time horizon)
- Strategy document construction (see Reforge / Lenny / Cagan strategy work; or `c-level-advisor/` skills)
- Brand positioning and messaging (see `marketing/` skills)
- Working Backwards PR/FAQ (covered in `execution/prfaq/`)
- North-star metric definition (see `execution/north-star-metric/`)
- OKR drafting (see `execution/brainstorm-okrs/`)

**Important Caveats:**
- A vision is *not* a marketing document. Marketing language belongs in messaging; vision language is direction.
- A vision that is never used is worse than no vision. If the document sits in a wiki and never informs decisions, it is fiction.
- The 10-year horizon is uncomfortable for execution-minded teams. Resist the urge to compress to "next year" -- the discomfort is the point.
- A vision can be wrong. The discipline is to commit, build, and update based on evidence. A vision that never updates is fossilized; one that updates monthly is not a vision.

## Integration Points

| Integration | Direction | What Flows |
|-------------|-----------|------------|
| `discovery/value-proposition-canvas/` | Receives from | Customer Profile (jobs, pains, gains) feeds Pichler Board "Needs" block |
| `discovery/jtbd-workshop/` | Receives from | Job hierarchy and top outcomes inform the vision's customer + outcome |
| `discovery/customer-interview-script/` | Receives from | Verbatim customer language sharpens vision phrasing |
| `execution/north-star-metric/` | Feeds into | The NSM derives from the vision -- the vision's outcome becomes the NSM input metric tree root |
| `execution/outcome-roadmap/` | Feeds into | The roadmap delivers the vision; every roadmap theme should trace back |
| `execution/brainstorm-okrs/` | Feeds into | OKRs serve the vision -- each quarterly objective should advance one vision pillar |
| `execution/prfaq/` | Complementary | Working Backwards PR is one expression of the vision; the FAQ stress-tests it |
| `execution/create-prd/` | Feeds into | PRDs explicitly reference the vision in Section 3 (Background) |
| `execution/roadmap-communication/` | Feeds into | Vision is the opening frame of every exec/customer roadmap presentation |
| `c-level-advisor/cto-advisor/` | Bidirectional | CTO uses vision to drive architecture bets; vision is informed by tech feasibility |

## References

- `references/vision-frameworks-guide.md` -- Full method for each framework (Pichler, Moore, Raskin, Cagan, Amazon)
- `assets/vision_board_template.md` -- Roman Pichler's Product Vision Board template
- `assets/narrative_vision_template.md` -- Andy Raskin 5-act strategic narrative template
- `assets/elevator_pitch_template.md` -- Geoffrey Moore positioning statement template
- `assets/vision_review_checklist.md` -- Vision Review Checklist with scoring rubric

---

## What I Need You to Do

First, detect which platform I'm using (Claude.ai, ChatGPT, etc.) and follow the matching instructions below.

### If I'm on Claude.ai:

Walk me through these exact steps:

1. **Create the Project:** Tell me to go to **claude.ai > Projects > Create project** and name it **"Product Vision"**

2. **Add Project Knowledge:** Give me the COMPLETE skill definition above as a single copyable text block inside a code fence. Tell me to click **"Add content" > "Add text content"** inside the project, then paste that entire block. Do NOT say "paste from above" -- give me the actual text to copy right there.

3. **Set Custom Instructions:** Tell me to open project settings and paste this exact instruction:
   "You are an expert Product Vision in the Project Management domain. Use the project knowledge as your expertise. Follow the workflows, frameworks, and templates defined there. Always provide specific, actionable output."

4. **Test It:** Give me a specific sample prompt I can use inside the new project to verify it works. Pick a real task from the skill's workflows.

### If I'm on ChatGPT:

Walk me through these exact steps:

1. **Create a Custom GPT:** Tell me to go to **chatgpt.com > Explore GPTs > Create**
2. **Configure it:**
   - Name: **"Product Vision"**
   - Description: "Write the Product Vision document -- the narrative above the north-star metric -- using Pichler's Vision Board, Moore's elevator pitch, Raskin's strategic narrative, and Cagan's 10-year framing."
   - Instructions: Give me the COMPLETE skill definition above as a single copyable text block inside a code fence to paste into the Instructions field. Do NOT say "paste from above."
3. **Test It:** Give me a sample prompt to verify it works.

### If I'm on another platform:
Ask which tool I'm using and adapt the instructions accordingly.

## Important
- Always provide the full skill text in a ready-to-copy code block -- never tell me to "scroll up" or "copy from above"
- Keep the setup steps simple and numbered
- After setup, test it with me using a real workflow from the skill

Source: https://github.com/borghei/Claude-Skills/tree/main/project-management/execution/product-vision/SKILL.md