High-Integrity Signal: Leading With North Stars Over Roadmaps

Recognize the Stakes of Visionless Execution

The implication of staying the course without a vision was severe: we were largely wasting the talents and capabilities of our people (not to mention the large vendor contracts). When teams are given roadmaps of features (output) rather than problems to solve (outcomes), motivation drops and innovation becomes rare. The logical cost of failure was a multi-billion dollar gamble. If we didn’t set a vision that achieved a balance of performance and coverage (specifically by recommending a sub-6 GHz flavor of 5G, or simply, sub-6), Visible faced the risk of being irrelevant due to T-Mobile’s wider coverage or cannibalizing Verizon’s own premium 5G offerings. We were at risk of building a solution that users wouldn’t love or that simply wasn’t viable for the business. We weren’t just building wireless connectivity; we were defining Visible’s relevance for the next decade.

Stop Managing the Backlog—Start Leading With Vision

The turning point in this journey was the realization that to lead an empowered team, I couldn’t just manage a backlog; I had to provide a North Star. In Silicon Valley Product Group’s (SVPG) product operating model, a product vision is not a roadmap of features, but a description of the future you are trying to create over the next three to ten years. Similar to McKinsey’s three horizons framework for sustained growth (company-wide portfolio), a product vision serves as the unifying “why” that allows multiple cross-functional teams to head in the same direction, even when working on different components of the whole. Crucially, the position I took was rooted in being “stubborn on vision, but flexible on the details”. While the roadmap is a series of tactical guesses, the vision is a leap of faith (a desirable end state that improves the lives of customers).

To move from an abstract goal to a transformative North Star, I took several definitive actions that align with the core tenants of Product Leadership:

First, I recognized that trust is earned through deep product competence, often called “doing the homework”. A product manager must be the undisputed expert on their industry, their data, and their business. For me, this meant spending days in the Columbia University library system to master the technical nuances of eMBB, URLLC, and mMTC. Without this foundation, any vision I set would have been a hollow guess. Instead, this research allowed me to identify the critical strategic context: the inherent tug-of-war between 5G performance and 5G coverage.

Second, I formulated an insight-driven recommendation. My analysis of Verizon’s radio assets and T-Mobile’s aggressive positioning led me to recommend the pursuit of sub-6 5G for the Visible brand. This wasn’t just a technical choice; it was a business viability decision. It positioned Visible to be competitive in the value segment without cannibalizing Verizon’s premium 5G offerings. This vision provided the necessary guardrails for the team—moving the conversation from a feature-chasing “mercenary” mindset to a “missionary” focus on a balanced customer experience.

Third, I utilized this North Star to lead my team through a high-integrity commitment. In the product model, we only commit to specific dates (like being ready for Apple’s iPhone 12 launch) after we have performed enough product discovery to address the risks of value, usability, feasibility, and viability. By rooting our goals in the vision, we were able to provide a high-confidence date that the rest of the business could count on, rather than the low-integrity dates typical of the roadmap era.

Finally, I applied the leadership principle of “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit” (an eloquent term coined by Amazon). Because I was “flying blind” without executive-level information, some stakeholders pushed back on our direction. However, strong leadership requires the courage to stand your ground when your vision is backed by research-driven insight. In a healthy organization, disagreement is a sign of engagement. By being transparent about the data and the “why” behind the sub-6 vision, I earned the trust necessary to move forward.

Hold the Vision Accountable to Results

The validation for these actions came months later. Last year, Verizon announced a $45+ billion acquisition of new spectrum^[1], including the very sub-6 assets our vision was built upon. We weren’t just building to a deadline; we were skating to where the puck was heading, despite “flying blind.”

The ultimate measure of a product vision is not the elegance of the slide deck that presents it, but the tangible value it delivers to the customer and the business. In the product model, we don’t just ship features; we solve problems in ways that customers love, and yet work for the business. For Visible, the move to 5G was never about chasing a technical buzzword or adding a “performance” feature in the Kano Model sense. As enabling technologies like 5G evolve, they shift from being a luxury to being a table stakes expectation. By setting a North Star that prioritized a sub-6 5G balance, we weren’t just providing “faster speeds”; we were ensuring our users were ready to support the next decade of wireless capabilities without sacrificing the coverage they depended on.

From a business perspective, the implications of this vision-led approach were transformative. SVPG’s product model emphasizes that strong product companies focus on outcomes over output. For Visible, the “output” was the technical 5G build-out, but the “outcome” was the ability to maintain its staggering 2X YoY growth trajectory. By providing a clear North Star, I gave the team the strategic context necessary to make high-integrity commitments. This wasn’t a “mercenary” team checking boxes on a roadmap; it was a team of missionaries focused on a future state that ensured Visible remained a viable—thriving competitor in a market-moving landscape.

See the Cost of Missing the North Star

The power of this story lies in the very real cost of failure. If we had remained a “feature factory”—plodding through a generic roadmap rather than aggressively pursuing a balanced 5G vision—the consequences would have been dire. If Visible had not been ready to support Apple’s first 5G device (the iPhone 12), we would have essentially handed our customers to the competition. In the world of pre-paid wireless, loyalty is earned every month; failing to meet the basic expectation of 5G support would have triggered a mass exodus of existing users while simultaneously paralyzing our ability to acquire new ones. This is the opportunity cost of working without a vision—the risk of being disrupted because you were too busy building the wrong things to see where the puck was heading.

Set the North Star to Unlock Team Potential

Ultimately, the validation of our North Star came after Verizon’s $45+ billion spectrum acquisition (months later) confirmed that our research-driven insight into sub-6 5G was not just a lucky guess, but a reflection of deep product competence and strategic foresight. This experience proves that when product leaders “do the homework,” they earn the credibility and trust required to lead through uncertainty.

The lesson for any aspiring product leader is clear: A compelling vision is the prerequisite for empowerment. It turns a fragmented group of specialists into an extraordinary team capable of navigating ambiguity and seizing intended results. By being stubborn on vision but flexible on the details, I transformed the team’s project-centric mindset to a product-oriented culture that didn’t just survive the 5G transition; it used it as a signal that a behemoth company can be an industry disruptor also.

Endnotes

Further Readings

• Cagan, M. (2017). Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love. Wiley.
• Cagan, M. & Jones, C. (2020). Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products. Wiley.
• Cagan, M. (2024). Transformed: Moving to the Product Operating Model. Wiley.