The Better Business Analysis Institute presence, the Better Business Analysis podcast with Benjamin Walsh. Hi everybody and welcome back to the Better Business Analysis podcast with your host, Benjamin Walsh. This week we continue on our BA Byte series because you like them. We're, we are breaking down important concepts for business analysts, product managers, project managers and all your project professionals out there
in short actionable bites. Today we are diving specifically into an area that I was pointed to a few weeks ago by a friend who's actually a product manager and that topic is called radical product thinking. And what is that? That's a structured way to set a bold, purposeful vision for your product. So specifically, we're going to be talking about vision setting, and that's what the course was
about. But this actually forms a larger, larger kind of framework for thinking about building products and the general sense of products. So instead of focusing on incremental product improvements or letting the market feedback steer you off course, this approach helps you craft a vision that shapes your product and ensures that you are solving meaningful problems for people that actually want to use your product. We'll be using the radical vision template.
OK, it's a worksheet to walk through the steps that you need to set a clear vision for your product. And I've already applied this to our huge program of work. So this is when you think about product, it doesn't necessarily need to be a, you know, a product or an intangible service. It could just simply be a vision
for your program. So by the end of this podcast today, you'll know how to create a vision, a radical product vision or just a radical vision that can align your entire team around a long term impactful strategy. So let's jump right in to radical vision template and break it down step by step. And this template, you can do the course. I'm, you know, I'm not promoting it. I don't get any monetary value. I just think it's a, a great learning that I've add to, I've
added to my BA toolkit here. And I think you can, if you're ABA or, or you're a project manager or a product manager, add this to your toolkit. It's a really good way of setting vision. So imagine this as a PowerPoint presentation, a Word template that you're breaking down, and we're going to go step by step through the sections, OK? You start your vision statement with a simple sentence and it starts with today when and then you outline the customer segment
that you're talking about. And when I say customer segment, I'm talking about the specific customer that you are focusing on. OK, when you start off, you might not be that great at this, but this is really specific. You're talking about, I don't know, mothers of newborn babies in America, for example, could be that you need to be really
specific. So the first step is to identify your your customer segment, which goes into today when customer segment and that's who your products going to be for. Think about the specific group of people who are facing a challenge that your product might help solve. It is essential to be clear here, as I said, OK, So I'll give you an example here today when remote workers in Wellington, New Zealand, OK, So that's specifically talking about a location and the area demographic.
And it's not just workers, it's talking about remote workers. So in that case, when you're talking about remote workers, your product will be aimed at remote workers who are juggling most multiple responsibilities, trying to stay productive while also managing their personal lives at home because they're at home. Be specific, don't just say all workers, OK? Think about a specific demographic. So that's Step 1.
Today when customer segment Step 2, you can write this on a separate line and you know, you can follow this through and stop the podcast rewind and you can draw this down. And by the end of this, it would be great to have one example that you could use. So the next insertion point here, Step 2 is want to desirable activity or outcome. So today we're in customer segment first line want to they want to achieve something. What is the target audience that
you're talking about? What do they want to achieve? What is the desirable outcome from their perspective? It's not about you. It's not about when my company wants to make money from product or when I want to serve it is what do they want to do? Don't give full down. It's not it's, it's about them at this point, OK? It's not about using your product. It's about what goals or tasks they're trying to achieve. You're not talking about your product right now.
So in that example, remote workers in Wellington want to maintain a healthy work life balance and stay productive. So that's what they want to achieve. What is their goal? Do you get it? Focus on the aspirations. This isn't about what they do. This is why they do it OK Remote workers don't just want to be productive. They want to feel accomplished without sacrificing personal time. You can be as long as you like here. This is not like a normal slogan for a company.
So that's Step 2 want to desirable outcome step three. Now on your third sentence, they have to current situation. OK. So today when customer segment want to achieve this goal outcome, they have to current solutions, what do they currently have to do? We're looking at how do they reach the goal today, OK, there is a really rare occasion where you will find that there are no alternatives. I do not believe it. People achieve goals today. Do not fall into assault, false
sense of security. If you're an entrepreneur that you've found a huge gap that no one has ever satisfied this market, that means you're thinking too much about your product. What is it that people do to achieve a healthy worth like work life balance today? Someone is achieving that today and won't be through technology necessarily. OK, So what are they? What existing solutions in the general sense, not just technology, are they relying on and why aren't they enough?
So let's come to our remote workers example. Today, when remote workers in Wellington, New Zealand want to maintain a healthy work life balance and stay productive, they have to use genetic generic, sorry, genetic generic time tracking tools and personal reminders, which are not tailored for remote worker remote work challenges.
These tools, for example, help manage tasks, but they don't provide a comprehensive solution to the work life balance problem, which is often, you know, the root of these people's problem. So the key tip here is that you're, you're digging deep into the workarounds. That's a compromises even that users are making. So that's step three. They have to what are the current solutions and and workarounds and manual what are they doing? And Step 4.
This is unacceptable. Unacceptable because and then you list the shortcomings of the most popular current solutions. OK, this is unacceptable because shortcoming of current solutions and I'll give you an example. Go straight into our remote workers. This is unacceptable because these tools do not offer personal guidance for balancing productivity and well-being leading to burnout. OK, this is really important here. This brings us to like the most critical path, part and path of
the vision setting statement. Is the current situation unacceptable? That and unacceptable is a is is a strong word, what with existing solutions. This is where you explain why something needs to change. So in this example, burnout is a huge issue for remote workers because they like the tools that help them both manage personal and work time effectively and relationships. So the key tip here is this should be passionate.
This should be about passion. This is your opportunity to say what's unacceptable pain points in the language we use sometimes, OK. And this of course is where your opportunity is for your product or your solution to address these needs. But it has to be unacceptable for that user. You have to have known that that customer segment, for example, finds this unacceptable or and they're compromising. Unacceptable is a big challenge.
And if you don't, if you don't have good reasons why this pain point, this area or these current solutions aren't unacceptable. Not just not great or have bad UI, that's not good enough. Unacceptable is a threshold. And if you don't meet that threshold, you won't get any customers because unacceptable means that there is such a gap that people are willing to pay for it. So just think about that in the back of your head #5 OK.
And #5 after we've explained that this is unacceptable because of these shortcomings #5 is we envision a world where shortcomings are resolved. OK, so you're now explaining the world after those shortcomings, the unacceptable behavioural situation, have been resolved. You're not talking about product features here, you're leading into it, but you're talking about it from the perspective of the customer segment.
So whether our remote workers, let's jump into, we envision a world where remote workers and Wellington, New Zealand can seamlessly switch between work and personal life without feeling overburdened using tools that support both productivity and well-being. Now that's important because you're talking about tools, You're not talking about features here. You're not saying we envision a world where there's one website where you go to that does this,
that and the other. This is generic and it's talking about the shortcomings. It's not talking about your technology at this point. So the key tip here is painting a picture of the ideal world. If your product succeeds, what change would make for your users? So it's one step removed from your actual product. It's more the the purpose of your product's existence. The key tip is dream big. Dream big. This is a vision, and it should be inspiring to your team and
users and to your customers. It's a vision for your customers too. This vision statement, as we'll get to the end of it very soon, is for you internally and for your customers, OK? And for your marketing teams to make it punchy in terms of slogans and whatnot, OK? So don't limit yourself on this point #5 we envision a world where don't limit yourself to incremental improvement.
Think transformative change. You only introduce a new capability slash product service if you are aiming at transfer transformational time. No amount of agility or continuous improvements going to get you there. Number six, the final bit, we're bringing about this world through and then your broad technology approach or approach doesn't necessarily be a technology solution. It could be a business case, it could be a policy change, for example, it could be a business process.
It could be a forming of organization. And in some cases, of course, it's an IT product. So this bit is finally where we outline how we are going to bring this vision to life. This is not still not about listing product features, OK, We're not. This is not what this is about. This is higher level. This is about your approach or your technology that will solve the problem and create this new world.
So we bring back to our remote worker examples, we could say we're bringing about this world through AI driven Productivity Tools that schedule well-being breaks and provide personalized work life balance recommendations, OK? So what we're really saying is our approach leverages AI to help remote workers manage their time in a healthy, sustainable way, focusing on productivity and well-being simultaneously.
So those were defined too. The key tip here is about the broad approach, OK, the philosophy that guides your product, it's the, it's the principles, it's needs to be wrapped around what you've already put in your statement. So step six that we've just covered is we're bringing this world about through. I think I might have got there backwards last time, but it's step 6, we're bringing this
world about through. And then your broad approach, you know your principal, your broad Technology Strategy. So that's it. There are 6 parts to that. I'm going to remind you what they were today. When customer segment want to complete an outcome, a finish, you know, complete a goal, they have to current situation. This is unacceptable because of the shortcomings of these current situations and solutions. We envision a world where these shortcomings are resolved.
We're bringing this world about through broad technology approach. So you can listen to this again and you can write those down. OK, and I'll post those onto the Spotify description so you can copy them. You can put them in a template and you can fold them through. I encourage you to do the Radical Product Thinking course. That's a free one, the vision setting one, and there are others. And you can get certified in this whole area and try it out on your next project.
I hope you enjoyed and you learned something this week and I'll see you next week.