Why visual communication is important for Product Managers?
I often get asked what I think is one of the most important skills for a product manager, and without a doubt, I always respond with “Influencing skills”. Why? Because as Product Managers, we solve complex problems in ambiguous environments. We are tangled up in a web of customer problems, business priorities and external conditions. Our role is to untangle the complexity and navigate through chaos to find the right solutions.
Our stakeholders play a critical role in our success. Product Managers are accountable for the product outcomes, but we can’t achieve success on our own. We need to work with our stakeholders to get their valuable input and buy-in on the decisions. Sometimes we work with stakeholders who are extremely passionate about our customer needs, products we build and the future roadmap! So of course, it’s important to be able to influence your stakeholders to get alignment on your ideas.
Without influencing, you may find yourself stuck, unable to get a decision, or execute solutions. Product Managers who lack influencing skills often end up taking orders from stakeholders for their roadmap. Silicon Valley’s product guru, Marty Cagan, calls this type of Product Managers as “Roadmap Administrators”.
What is influencing?
Influencing is a skill set where our behaviour or approach is used to change someone else’s thought process and persuade others to agree with you on a topic without using force while respecting their viewpoints.
Influencing skills is a combination of many different skills — confidence, leadership, active listening, strategic thinking.. But IMHO the most important skill that makes you influential is your ability to communicate with others. How you tell a story, how you paint the vision, how you communicate complex things simply, how you communicate with empathy and connect with others.
Influencing is when you use all these skills to make things happen and get buy-in for your ideas, projects and goals from others.
Power of visual communications in influencing
We live in a society where there is information overload. According to the scientists, an average person can process as much as 75GB of information each day.1 That is larger than a standard iPhone! So how can we make our ideas stand out amongst everything else that we need to mentally process each day? This is where the power of visual communication becomes crucial.
I was once in a meeting with a Product Manager who had brilliant communication skills. She communicated a complex problem in a simple way that engaged everyone, even those who were not close to the problem. To aid her communication, she used a great visual presentation that made her message easy to follow and digest. Stakeholders wanted to learn more about the problem and were keen to help her solve it. And just like that she received stakeholder’s buy-in. Her critical analysis and well structured recommendation accompanied with a great visual communication influenced her stakeholders.
On the other hand, I have seen Product Managers with poor communication styles struggle to get support for their ideas. Some had great ideas but people failed to see their point of view because their story was difficult to follow and not compelling enough. How can visual communication help? It can help you structure your story, simplify your message and make it more engaging for your audience.
Visual communication doesn’t have to be production quality videos or presentations, it can be as simple as clearly laying out your ideas by:
- Breaking down your messages to communicate one idea per slide
- Using flowcharts to articulate complex concepts
- Visualising the data to highlight key insights
- Using images and icons to bring some ideas to life
For example, many Product Managers use Confluence to document our work. Have you ever seen a long unstructured requirements page? It’s not only boring, but it is difficult to read and understand. On the other hand, a well structured Confluence page with subheadings, images, colour fonts, tables and even emojis can make complex content easy to digest and read!
What about presentations? As Product Managers, we find ourselves presenting regularly from strategic visions to detailed execution plans. I remember using Microsoft Powerpoint to create decks in my corporate banking days. It did the job. It was fine. Then I discovered Canva! And wow, it made a world of difference in the quality of my presentations.
Canva gives you access to thousands of professional templates, photos, images, fonts and more. Using its super easy to use drag and drop feature, you can create a professional looking presentation in seconds. Canva is truly a game changer for the future of visual communications. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to work for Canva. I currently lead a Product Group at Canva and I love it.
Final thoughts
Visual communication can make your message stand out in a world where there is information overload. Effective use of visual communication can boost your confidence and storytelling. In my experience, there seems to be a positive correlation between the quality of your visual communication and how the message is perceived by others (ie. influence). Sure, influencing isn’t all about visual communications but it can definitely enhance your ability to influence others. If you haven’t already, how about honing your visual communication skills and see the results in brings 😊
Julia, Product Gal 👾
1 https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2017.0002
