Building Products for the Enterprise: Product Management in Enterprise Software

by Blair Reeves

As the product manager, the best way to establish your product vision (if there isn’t already a clear one) is to figure out how your product will help your company achieve its vision. After the product vision is clear, seek to establish the categories of innovation that your product needs to pursue to achieve that vision. You will end up with a hierarchy looking something like Figure 2-1. Figure 2-1. Breaking down the corporate vision into product features We propose being very clear about this hierarchy, and as you present your ideas to colleagues, go through something similar to but hopefully more visually appealing than Figure 2-1. Remind management how your product connects to the company vision and how the relevant aspects of the product strategy help realize that vision. You’ll be all set up to explain how the project you are seeking to undertake brings that product strategy to bear.