Product Led thinking for use in leadership coaching
- Vicky Pike
- Jun 10
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 11
“At the heart of every great product is a clear sense of purpose.” — Marty Cagan, Inspired
What if we treated our lives with the same intentionality we give our products?
If you’re a product manager you already know how to shape vision, drive alignment, and drive decisions through data.
But what happens when a high-performing product leader feels unfulfilled? This is where executive coaching meets product thinking.
Have you ever felt like your own personal roadmap is out of date, too busy, high on velocity, but low on fulfilment? Have you ever tried to apply product thinking techniques to yourself?
In this blog, I’ll share a personal strategy framework inspired by product management that I use for myself and many of my coaching clients. It helps shape your life with the same clarity and creativity you bring to your work.
Why Product Leaders need a personal strategy
In product management, we often begin with a clear user problem or a promising opportunity. But when it comes to our lives, the signals can be fuzzier. And when it comes to ourselves, we're not starting from scratch. We can all consider ourselves fairly mature products! Stable, valuable, feature rich, full roadmaps, plenty of activity, and so on.
But for some of us, we might be drifting off-course, or you can't quite remember why the activity matters or what outcomes they’re meant to be driving. You have quite literally become a classic feature team setup!
Perhaps one or more of these resonate:
You’re delivering, but it doesn’t feel meaningful.
You’re constantly busy, ticking off tasks, but rarely asking if they still matter.
You’re investing energy without a personal return.
It’s not broken, but you wonder: whose roadmap are you following?
It’s not broken exactly but you wonder whose roadmap you’re following, and what journey you’re on.
And that is exactly where my Vision-to-Action Framework begins enabling you to step out of the feature factory and become your very own empowered product team! Helping you to reconnect with your why.
Taking small, testable steps will bring clarity and direction back into focus. From there, patterns emerge. Opportunities become visible. Priorities start to sharpen.
Introducing the Vision-to-Action Framework
This five-step system brings product thinking to personal growth, so you can move from drift to design with clarity and intention.
Step One: Craft Your Personal Vision Statement
This is your North Star, expressed as a vivid, aspirational future you. A strong vision statement describes who you want to become and what your life looks and feels like when you're truly aligned. Think of it as your personal product vision: clear, bold, and emotionally compelling.
Examples:
I am a courageous, calm, and creative leader who builds meaningful things and leaves people better than I found them.
I live a spacious, joyful life surrounded by deep relationships, creative flow, and purposeful work.
I am known for helping others thrive by being radically present, playful, and generous with my insight.
To help you embody the future you, write your vision statement in the present tense, as though it’s already true.
Step Two: Clarify Your Guiding Principles
Develop your guiding principles; your core values that shape how you make decisions and navigate trade-offs, prioritise and say no when things don't align. If your vision is where you're going, your guiding principles are how you'll travel.
You might ask:
What do I want to be known for?
What must you have in your life?
What was in your life when you were most in flow?
Where will you not compromise?
Examples of values: Freedom, Connection, Progress, Honesty, Fun
Step Three: Set Personal Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
Just like in product teams, OKRs give you structure and focus. But unlike a task list, OKRs are outcome-oriented, they’re grounded in the change you want to see and the impact you want to create.
Many clients come to me thinking in terms of effort and activity, i.e., what they’re doing as opposed to why they’re doing it. A big part of the work we do is pivoting from these outputs or the what/effort to outcomes or the why/change they want to see.
The shift helps them stay connected and track real progress toward their vision.
Let’s break it down:
Objective
Your objective should describe the change you want to see and the impact it will have.
Poor objective: Go to the gym 4 times a week
Better objective: Build physical strength and energy to support a more active, focused life
Key Results
Key Results describe how you’ll know if you’re making progress toward your objective. They are characterisations of the objective, they are measurable, outcome-oriented, and anchored in change, not just effort.
Poor key results: Log every workout in a training app; plan weekly sessions; complete 30 minutes per visit
Better key results:
Increase total weight lifted (per session) by 20% over 8 weeks
Raise resting metabolic rate by 100 kcal/day
Increase muscle mass by 1.5–2kg within 3 months
Initiatives or “Bets”
Only then, underneath your objectives and key results do you outline your actions for how you may achieve your objectives. These are the things you believe will move the needle.
For example:
Go to the gym 4 times a week
Follow a progressive weights programme
Prep protein-rich meals ahead of time
You might start with four gym sessions, then realise three quality sessions are more effective. That’s why context and vision matter. This isn’t about rigid tracking, it’s about intentional learning.
If you only track outputs, you risk losing sight of your “why.” It's like shipping features without knowing if they made anything better. Focus on the impact: how you feel, what improves, what shifts.
These OKRs are your hypotheses. Review them every two weeks, just like a great product team would, asking:
What’s working? What’s surprising? What needs a pivot?
Step Four: Develop a Vision-to-Action Board
Next it is helpful to visualise! You could use a whiteboard, Miro, Notion, or just good old paper.
Plot your:
Vision at the top. Is it inspiring? Do you get excited by it? Can you connect yourself to it? Is it bold?
Values at the bottom. They are your foundations. If these are off-kilter then it will throw off everything else.
Objectives as themed areas or columns
Key Results underneath—focused on outcomes, not just activity
Bets beneath each Key Result—these are the small, testable actions you’ll try to move the needle
It keeps you anchored in your “why,” helps you test what matters, and invites meaningful reflection.
Step Five: Review Regularly
Treat your life like your most important product, because it is. Regular check-ins aren’t just about accountability; they’re about learning. What worked? What didn’t? What felt aligned? Think of it as a retrospective for your life, where you can iterate based on real data, your own lived experience.
Zooming out to see the whole system
Fortnightly check-ins help you stay responsive and adjust in real time. But quarterly and annual reviews give you perspective: they help you step back, look at the arc of your journey, and intentionally evolve your strategy.
Just like product teams use quarterly planning and annual roadmapping, you can use these longer intervals to reconnect with your big picture.
Quarterly review prompts:
Which OKRs did you move forward this quarter?
What surprised you?
What patterns are emerging in your choices or energy?
What might you double down on, drop, or delegate next quarter?
What’s one experiment you want to try in the next 90 days?
Keep it simple: One page is enough. The goal is insight, not admin.
Annual Review & Planning Prompts:
Has my personal vision shifted? If so, how?
What values felt most alive this year—and which ones did I compromise?
What goals gave me energy?
What drained me?
What 3 words describe this year?
What 3 do I want for next year?
What would success look like 12 months from now, emotionally, practically, relationally?
You can also revisit and reframe your Vision Statement, Guiding Principles, and high-level OKRs at this point, just like refreshing a product strategy after a year in market.
From Drift to Design
The Vision-to-Action Framework isn’t about over-engineering your life it’s about giving your dreams a structure that supports momentum.
When you know your Objectives and Key Results, you start making decisions that align. You move with intention, not obligation. You say:
Yes to what energises you.
No to what distracts.
Not now to what doesn’t serve this season.
A Personal Invitation
If you're a product leader, tech professional, or simply someone feeling a bit unmoored, the Vision-to-Action Framework is for you.
You don’t have to figure it out by yourself. I offer personalised 1:1 executive and leadership coaching sessions for product managers and tech leaders. Whether you need to reclarify your purpose, align your strategy, or design a more fulfilling life, the Vision-to-Action™ Framework can help.
Book a free discovery call to find out more.
