And even more importantly: are your future products going to create value in 2-4 years down the line? During my time at Intel, I recall how forward thinking the company was; they employed anthropologists to research how people used technology or could use it, so the company could better plan products that took 4 years to develop and build. If you didn’t get the 4-year vision right, you would miss the boat and be left behind. One visionary I met at Intel during its peak years was Jon Stine, when he led the worldwide retail, hospitality and consumer goods sales team. Today, he is a co-founder of Honeycomb Retail AI and a close friend and mentor of mine. During a roadtrip together, Jon educated me about vision creation and two key parts: Assert and Adjust. It has been a foundation of Momenthesis, so this month, I spoke to Jon again, to share more about this critical process.

“You need to be able to assert a vision of what the reality will be of that enterprise, of that business, of the customers, 18 to 36 months ahead,” Jon instructs. “You need to not only look ahead, but in many cases, you try to look around the corner, because the reality of today will not be the reality of tomorrow. How do we begin to look ahead with an understanding of the current state and a respect for the past?

“And when you finish, you want your customers to be able to say, I’m able to now have a leadership against my competition.”

What does the process look like? Jon walks us through 5 steps:

Step 1: Research

This is the hardest part. Very few willing to do this, investing time to keep up with the industry trends and seeking external knowledge to track trends. Understand what it means to be a student, to research and organise the information. Research needs to include not only the space your product plays in, but trends in demographic, socio-political, economic, and technology usage realms. If done poorly, the rest of your process will be way off track. And on a side note: Never go shopping with Jon, as a retail guy who’s always learning the trade, he’ll ruin the experience for life.

Step 2: Create the “Assertion”

From these researched trends, add your own perspectives of what it will look like by building a unique hypothesis. It will be formed by the intersection of all these trends lines: what will the new normal 18-36 months from now look like? Work backwards to build that roadmap on how to get to the future you envision. Include the gap analysis of where you are today and where you need to be, followed by the gap your product or service can provide to fill that gap. “It’s envisioning a destination and then identifying the path to reach that destination,” Jon further explains.

Step 3: Test and “Adjust,” constantly

Once your hypothesis is formed, test it with close friends, your trusted customers, experts in the industry. Really listen to their feedback to ensure you have confidence in the trends you’re expecting. And be courageous to take the criticism. “I had a mentor as I was learning this who once took a look at a deck and said, ‘Jon, with all due respect, this is really stupid.’ And man, I wanted to go crawl beneath the bed and just stay there for the rest of the day,” he recalled. “But you take that risk – and you’re better for it.”

Step 4: Build the vision report

This isn’t a powerpoint exercise, developing the language and defining the Vision adequately is part of the process. It’s building the roadmap on how to get to where you want to go.

Step 5: Invest and implement

The final step, and while it may seem like the hardest, is probably the easiest. And that’s to commit to the vision and start the journey.

If you’re struggling with creating a vision for your new data center technology product because you lack the focus it takes to bring it to market, we can help walk you through these steps.