Product Vision Workshop with NetCologne
A Unified Product Vision as the Starting Point for a Successful Software Development Project
Introduction
NetCologne is a regional telecommunications provider based in Cologne, Germany. The company offers services in internet, telephone, television, and mobile communications. As a pioneer in fiber-optic expansion in Germany, NetCologne operates a modern fiber-optic network spanning 30,500 kilometers and serves over half a million private and business customers. NetCologne is committed to ensuring the region’s infrastructure and places great importance on close connections with the people and the local community.
Since 2021, AOE and NetCologne have been working together. In co-creation with AOE, NetCologne, as a frontrunner in fiber-optic expansion in the Cologne region, optimized fiber-optic pre-orders for new and existing customers. This partnership resulted in a user-friendly pre-marketing solution for fiber-optic products with a seamless user experience.
Situation
In this project, three teams worked on three different products, all part of a unified customer journey:
The teams from the FTTH Factory (fiber-optic pre-marketing), the website, and the customer portal together form the online world of NetCologne, which offers various self-services to new and existing customers, such as online orders, contract overviews, and information on FTTH expansion status. Each of these three products is developed (or further developed) by a cross-functional Scrum team with its own Product Owner. Because data is exchanged and processed across these products, dependencies and cross-cutting features frequently arise.
Challenge
Product Vision in Harmony
Originally, all three products were developed by a single team. However, due to increased demand, this was gradually split into three teams. As a result, none of the three products (FTTH Factory, Customer Portal, Website) initially had a defined product vision. Yet, each product had multiple goals and various requirements brought forward by stakeholders.
To evaluate and prioritize these diverse requirements and ensure all teams were aligned, it became clear: We needed a shared product vision – an overarching vision for all three products, unified as the online world – that would pave the way for more consistency and shared principles.
The vision should also help to ensure that overarching features are designed together, always with a uniform vision in mind. This also meant creating a basis for overarching prioritization and identifying dependencies early on and making them discussable.
Approach
Stakeholders Unite Perspectives
The overarching product vision was developed in a workshop with the three Product Owners and other relevant stakeholders. We used a customized version of the Product Vision Canvas during the workshop.
Using this method, we first defined the target audience, gathered their needs, derived key features from these needs, and then aligned them with business goals. The challenge was to bring together the various stakeholder perspectives and focus on a few common points that everyone could agree on. From this, we distilled the key characteristics of the online world and formulated them into a concise product vision.
The challenge was that the online world involved many different stakeholders, and we wanted to consider all of their valuable perspectives. As a result, we brought together vastly different viewpoints from technology, customer service, strategy, and marketing, which wasn’t easy to unify.
After some constructive discussions, the workshop succeeded in identifying the key points: We reached a consensus on the target audience, their most pressing needs, and, based on these, the primary goal of the online world. Through this exchange, everyone gained a better understanding of each other's perspectives and could see beyond their own narrow focus.
Outcome
Shared Awareness
A key benefit of the overarching product vision emerged during the workshop itself: Stakeholders from various departments developed a shared understanding and agreed on which product aspects they considered most important.
Additionally, we were able to uncover blind spots during the workshop. For example, it became clear that many of the target audience's needs were based on assumptions, and it wasn’t fully known which of these were truly important to actual users. This highlighted the need to work more closely with the target audience, including through user tests and surveys.
Moreover, an awareness was created that the three products must be thought of together. The Product Vision Workshop laid the foundation for several follow-up workshops, such as Story Mapping or Card Sorting, where processes were designed across products.
The vision makes it easier for the Product Owners to communicate how the online world should be shaped in the future, whether to teams or stakeholders. It also provides guidance in prioritizing new features and highlights areas where the products can still be unified.
Quote
"I wasn’t sure what to expect from the workshop, but I’m really impressed. We’ve established many insights, and most importantly, we’ve realized that despite the many different challenges and perspectives, we can find common ground that we can all follow. The vision sums up everything important. It truly reflects who we are."
Natalie David
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