You Placed The Flag. Now What?
You made the business case, proved the viability, and won the budget. You have vision, alignment, resources, a rough timeline. You're wrapping up 2025 with big plans for 2026.
And there's no time to rest.
You have a few short weeks left in the year. January 1, everyone will be looking to you for direction. Leadership is expecting a strong start in the new year. Today, you have a pitch deck and a dusty backlog, meanwhile everyone seems to be winding down 2025.
The vision that won approval was compelling, broad, inspirational. It painted a picture of market opportunity and business impact. It got money to move. Inspiration is cricitial, but teams can’t execute against vision statements, alone. They need direction, priorities, and absolute clarity about what to build first, next, and what’s beyond.
Now, how are you going to turn vision into reality?
Where To Start
Perhaps you have recent market and customer research. That helps prioritize what customers actually want. But the reality? Most folks don't have current research and insights sitting around. And that's alright. We can work toward that next quarter.
For now, we’ll work with what you do have: market trends, data analytics, customer feedback, support tickets, sales conversations. We can identify where customers hit roadblocks, what they prefer to experience, and how we can solve their pain points.
We turn a critical eye inward, too. What capabilities exist on your team? What expertise do the offer? Where are the gaps? Who can do what, how well, and how quickly?
All of this informs what we prioritize and in what order.
From Vision to Reality
After a few collaborative exercises leveraging expertise across your teams, you have something tangible: a high-level prioritization of features and functions. Titles and short descriptions. Some include references to research and insights. Maybe even some rough sketches of the UI or backend architecture maps.
Now it's time to write stories.
Start at the top of the priority list. What needs to get tackled first? Because writing stories takes time, continuing long into Q1. In fact, it never really stops.
Stories That Empower Teams
Let’s put some rigor into our documentation. Start with a literal user story. So often, this gets skipped. But when implemented with precision, it makes perfectly clear the challenge you're solving, for whom, and why:
As a [USER TYPE], I want [ACTION] so that I can [GOAL].
Follow up with brief context. Provide high-level insight that frames the user story. The goal is for your audience (your teams) to be able articulate the rationale for why this story is a priority. Touch on business viability, customer desirability, and technical feasibility. It should be brief, and if your audience understands the "why," they'll be more empowered to craft effective solutions.
Now, the hard part - resist the temptation to document solutions.
Instead, empower your teams to provide the answers. Think about the challenges that need to be solved, then reframe them as opportunities. I've found great success in the simplicity of "How Might We" statements. When we reframe challenges as open-ended questions, it inspires your folks to craft solutions you might never have imagined.
Finally, document any open questions, assign owners of answers, and link all relevant documentation.
This is the necessary building of a robust backlog that can inspire both conceptual exploration in your discovery track and execution excellence in your delivery track.
Two Tracks? Dual Tracks? What Tracks?
Continuous discovery is how you ensure your teams craft truly innovative solutions for your biggest challenges. It's based on Lean UX principles, and I've implemented it for enterprise organizations, growth-stage ventures, and startups. Discovery and delivery run in parallel. Discovery explores, validates, and reduces risk. Delivery executes with confidence. The backlog feeds both tracks, and both tracks feed each other.
It's the difference between hoping your team builds the right thing and knowing they will.
December Is Your Window
You have a few short weeks to set your team up for a strong Q1. To translate vision into strategy. To build the foundation that turns resources into results.
This isn't about perfection. It's about direction. Clarity. Confidence.
If you're standing at this inflection point—resources approved, team winding down for the holidays, meanwhile Q1 pressure is mounting—let's talk about how strategic design partnership bridges vision and execution.
Because the gap between winning the budget and shipping meaningful outcomes? That's exactly where design thinking creates value. You don’t have to do it alone.