A radical idea: We are all building products
whether we realize it or not
Earlier this week I presented Radical Product, the global movement that’s building vision-driven products, at UX Fest, organized by Fresh Tilled Soil. It was an honor to be a part of this spectacular event with incredibly inspiring speakers.
Preparing for UX Fest got us to articulate why Radical Product, which started as a free and open source toolkit for articulating your product vision, has quickly grown into a full-blown global movement and product strategy methodology. Here are the 3 concepts that are the foundation of this practical, big idea:
1. Every one of us is in a product organization, whether we realize it or not.
Whether you’re in a non-profit, a government organization, in research, in a high tech startup, or even a freelancer, you have a product. Your “Product” is how you effect change in the world.
I was speaking to a teacher recently who asked me about Radical Product. When I shared this concept that we’re all in a product organization, it resonated with her. Her response was, “My students would be my products!” Thinking about what we do as a product means we can ask this next question, “How can we build products with purpose”?
2. Every one of us can own the product vision for our product so we can build products with purpose.
The teacher I was talking to shared that her vision was “to make sure her students leave her knowing how to learn and excited about learning”. Owning a compelling vision shouldn’t just be relegated to famous people in black turtlenecks. Every one of us at any level in an organization can and should own a product vision.
While a company’s mission can be aspirational and broad, a product vision has to be concrete and actionable. For example, SpaceX’s vision is to create an organization that will help humanity colonize Mars and travel to the stars. If you hand this vision to the poor product manager who works on reusable rockets, it’s just not that helpful. A PM working on reusable rockets would need to come up with a product vision specific to their product, focusing on the impact their product will have on the world. To use a software metaphor, Vision is a common “API” for checking if your work is aligned with another team’s.
3. Until now, there wasn’t a clear path for building vision-driven products.
We’re changing that. Building vision-driven products means having a clear vision, a compelling product strategy to achieve that vision, and translating the vision and strategy into an execution plan. While this is easily said, it is incredibly hard to do. What is a “good” vision? What does product strategy really mean? And how do you translate vision and strategy into execution?
We’ve created the Radical Product Toolkit as a system to provide practical answers to these questions using Radical Product thinking. Using the Toolkit, you can craft the source code to your vision, your RDCL Strategy, Prioritization rubric, Strategic Roadmap and develop a hypothesis driven Execution and Measurement Model. At UX Fest I talked about 2 of these elements: how do you craft a good vision and how do you manage the trade-off between achieving the vision while mitigating risk .
Radical Product: The Book
To further the vision of curing product diseases around the world, starting this summer we’re going to be working on a manuscript for a book on bringing Radical Product thinking into your team or company. We’ll be sending out free chapters to Radical Product mailing list, and would love your feedback. If you haven’t already joined our mailing list, you can do so when you download the free and open source Toolkit.
It’s been inspiring to hear how many of you are using Radical Product thinking to build vision-driven products. Many of you have shared vision statements in the “vision source code format” — we’re humbled to see the change you’re creating in the world through your products. We’d love to include some of your stories in the book so we can illustrate how Radical Product thinking is being used to build vision-driven products. If you’d be open to having your company, team, or product featured in the book, please share your comments below or reach out to us at hello@radicalproduct.com or on LinkedIn. We look forward to hearing from you!
Radical Product is a movement that provides a methodology for strategic product thinking, in a similar way that Lean and Agile provided a methodology for feedback-driven execution. Use the free and open source Radical Product Toolkit to bring Radical Product thinking into your organization.
