As a product manager, you constantly toggle between the big-picture strategy and vision and the tactical execution and shipping of features. This ability to fluidly “zoom out” to the 30,000-foot view of the product roadmap and company vision, while being able to “zoom in” to the nitty-gritty of your sprint deliverables is a critical skill.
Why does this ‘zoom out to zoom in’ ability matter? With so many day-to-day fires to fight and backlogs to grind through, it’s easy to become heads-down focused only on the next release. However, losing that bigger context can hurt the product in the long run. As Elon Musk says, “If you get too focused on short-term stuff you can lose sight of what really matters for the long-term.” By zooming out, you can better ensure your incremental progress ladders up to the overarching vision.
This post will cover why product managers need to practice zooming out and in, some best practices for implementing this skill, and examples of impact on the product.
The 30,000 Foot View – What is the Overall Strategy and Vision?
As a Product Manager, having clarity on the 30k-foot view is an essential baseline for decision-making. Before driving tactical prioritization and execution, you need awareness of the company’s vision, mission, and strategy from executives.
Some key questions to get grounded in this high-level perspective include:
- What is our company vision for the next 3-5 years? What about the next 10?
- How does our company and product strategy ladder up to this vision?
- What are the 3-5 key company goals for this year and what metrics indicate progress?
- Who are the target customer personas we serve? What underserved jobs-to-be-done exist?
Having this 30k foot view etched clearly means as you encounter daily product decisions, you can map back up to the overall direction and whether it aligns and ladders up. It also helps you anticipate what executives will likely prioritize on the roadmap. This high-level understanding will equip you to zoom back in with focused execution.
Drilling Down – Translating Strategy into Execution
As a product manager, the job is not just understanding the high-level strategy but actually grounding it into an executable plan that delivers tangible value to customers. This means taking those abstract ideas from the 30,000-foot view and drilling them down into concrete features, user stories, and backlog items.
Some best practices to help translate that zoom-out bird’s eye view into zoom-in execution include:
- Breaking down vague strategic goals into specific, measurable metrics for success. For example, a goal of “expand market share” needs to become “gain 3000 new customers in target segment over next 2 quarters.
- Mapping out how features and releases will incrementally track back and ladder up to those metrics. Ask – how does this sprint move the numbers?
- Clearly tying features and stories to elements of the strategy – whether specific persona needs, underserved jobs-to-be-done, or high-level themes.
- Creating customer journey maps that visualize how proposed functionality translates to actual user experience.
- Building rough mockups and prototypes to make those connections between strategic intent and hands-on functionality concrete for stakeholders.
The art is taking the 30,000-foot concepts and grounding them tactically in a way that aligns quarterly execution with long-term vision.
Jumping Between Perspectives
The hallmark of a great product manager isn’t just zooming out OR in – but seamlessly toggling between the two views. You need to connect those dots constantly while fluidly jumping to whatever perspective is most relevant.
Some examples include:
- Crafting quarterly roadmaps and goals that clearly map back to yearly strategic objectives
- Performing regular backlog grooming and sprint planning through the lens of long-term product vision
- Evaluating individual feature P&Ls while keeping overall metrics top of mind
Strong Product Managers can hold both the granular details and the bigger picture in their heads simultaneously. They can at one moment be reviewing daily bug fixes and user issues, while also being able to flip to discussing the multi-quarter roadmap in the next executive planning meeting. The ability to smoothly navigate both worlds is essential.
Mindsets and Mental Models
Having the right zoom-in/out mindsets and mental models is key to toggling between perspectives fluidly. Some concepts that help include:
Systems Thinking – understanding how all parts interrelate into a whole system. Individual features impact other pieces of the product experience, which ultimately ladder up to the overall strategy. Seeing these connections allows you to consider wider implications.
First Principles Reasoning – breaking down complex problems into basic root cause fundamentals provides clarity. By zooming out to first principles, you can better evaluate plans through the lens of what ultimately drives customer and company value.
Mental Models – having a library of core business, product, and decision-making models to reference provides mental shortcuts to navigate problems. Models around pricing, positioning, markets, and more can help frame both strategic and tactical choices.
Developing the Zoom Out/In Ability
How can product managers get better at zooming out and in? Some tips include:
- Spend time understanding vision/mission/strategy docs – don’t just rely on exec presentations but go deeper with documentation.
- Attend meetings with company leadership beyond just product to absorb high-level thinking on plans.
- Set reminders to intentionally reflect on the bigger picture – quarterly, annually, etc, not just daily standups.
- Talk to customers directly via user research to ground abstract ideas into real human needs.
- Ask smart questions that connect short and long-term – how does this release map to our 3-year goals?
It takes continuous practice but pays dividends for strategic product management over the long term.
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The Impact on the Product
Why does honing this zoom-in and out ability matter for the actual product? How does it translate to better outcomes?
- More alignment with company strategy – features and roadmaps directly ladder up to strategic goals. There is less disjointed work happening in silos.
- Avoiding short-termism – the product evolves systematically towards the long-term vision vs just responding tactically to the latest requests.
- Seeing white space opportunities – zooming out equips you to identify completely new underserved customer needs and innovative areas to take the product.
- Executing with efficiency – strategy informs what NOT to focus resources on just as much as what to build. Doing less better.
- Future-proofing the product – the right high-level vision anticipates market changes ahead of time allowing for rapid adaptation.
By practicing zoom out and in, product managers can shape products that drive both immediate results aligned to long-term missions.
Key Takeaways
- Zoom out to connect product execution with the overall company vision and strategy
- Zoom in to translate that strategy into concrete, executable features that deliver customer value
- Toggle seamlessly between bird’s eye view and nitty-gritty details
- Leverage the right mindsets and mental models to enable perspectives
- Practice this skill continuously to build products driven by strategy and vision
By fluidly zooming out and in, product managers can maximize their unique value of bridging strategy with hands-on delivery for winning products.