PM-level research won't give you a product vision

I learned to do great research as a PM. But that didn't give me the insight I needed as a VP.

I still remember sitting in the American Express HQ cafeteria, showing a cashier our prototype for a new POS system. I knew to evaluate ideas before building, yet I felt certain she'd love the "smart" layout we designed to surface top-sellers and save her time.

Until she stared me down: "I know my regulars. I don't want your computer messing up my buttons."

Lesson learned: don't assume what's best for the user. Got it.

That moment shaped my PM years.

But when I became a Head of Product overseeing a suite of products, and its future, I needed a vision. Even with PMs doing amazing discovery, I knew that none of our insights went deep enough to anchor one.

Vision from PM-level insights

So many roadmaps are just small, smart improvements dressed up to sound strategic.

Why? Because most executives are trying to build vision from PM-level insights.

PM research (even when done well) asks:

• "What's broken in the current flow?"
• "How do people currently meal plan?"
• "What frustrates them about grocery shopping?"

But none of those questions could answer what I had to crystal ball: the next five years of how we feed our families.

The open-ended version

So I ran the most open-ended research we'd ever done. No roadmap, no problem statement, just real human curiosity:

• "How does grocery shopping fit into your life?"
• "What do you like to cook?"
• "How do you decide what's worth spending money on?"

And here's what we kept hearing: "I don't even know what I want to eat tonight, let alone tomorrow."

Turns out, the average American doesn't know what they'll have for dinner at 4pm. Meanwhile, our product required customers to plan their groceries five days in advance.

That one insight reframed everything. From "How do we improve shopping?" to "What if they didn't have to shop at all?"

That's what vision-level discovery does: it elevates what the business is really here to solve.

I didn't know if we'd find anything when we started. These days, I see that same hesitation in every founder and Head of Product I coach through this kind of discovery work.

But there's always an "aha." Every single time.

So what questions have you been asking: ones that improve the product, or ones that reimagine what's possible?

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This post originally appeared on LinkedIn.