Managing Products with Agility · Topic 1 of 5
Product Vision and Business Strategy
Product vision and business strategy for PSPO I: what a product is, vision, strategy and the Product Goal, and testing strategy with evidence.
- 4 min
- Includes a diagram
- A product is a vehicle to deliver value with a clear boundary, known stakeholders and well-defined users or customers.
- Vision and strategy come from Scrum.org guidance; the Product Goal comes from the Scrum Guide.
- The Product Owner develops and explicitly communicates the Product Goal.
What it is
A product vision describes why the product exists and the future it aims to create for its customers. A business strategy describes how the organization plans to reach that future: which customers, which problems, how the product creates value for them and for the organization.
The Scrum Guide does not use the words vision or strategy. It gives the Product Owner the Product Goal, a future state of the product which serves as a target for the Scrum Team to plan against. Scrum.org guidance treats vision and strategy as the context the Product Goal comes from.
How it works
What a product is
The Scrum Guide defines a product as a vehicle to deliver value. It has:
- a clear boundary,
- known stakeholders,
- well-defined users or customers.
A product could be a service, a physical product or something more abstract. Defining the product well matters because one product has one Product Owner and one Product Backlog, however many teams work on it.
From vision to Sprint Goal
| Level | Question it answers | Time horizon | In the Scrum Guide? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vision | Why does the product exist? | Long term | No, Scrum.org guidance |
| Strategy | How will we reach the vision? | Medium to long term | No, Scrum.org guidance |
| Product Goal | What future state of the product do we target next? | Many Sprints | Yes, commitment for the Product Backlog |
| Sprint Goal | Why is this Sprint valuable? | One Sprint | Yes, commitment for the Sprint Backlog |
The Product Owner develops and explicitly communicates the Product Goal. The Scrum Team pursues one Product Goal at a time and must fulfil or abandon it before taking on the next.
A good vision
A useful product vision is usually:
- Clear and short, so anyone on the team can repeat it.
- Focused on customers and outcomes, not on a list of features.
- Inspiring, giving a reason to care about the work.
- Stable but not frozen: it changes far less often than the Product Backlog, but evidence can change it.
Strategy as a hypothesis
In a complex market, a strategy is a set of assumptions: who the customers are, what they need and what they will value. An empirical Product Owner treats it as a hypothesis to test, not a fixed plan.
Scrum.org's Evidence-Based Management (EBM) guidance describes goals at three levels:
| EBM goal | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Strategic Goal | A large, important goal the organization wants to achieve, often far away and uncertain |
| Intermediate Goal | A goal that, when achieved, shows the organization is on the path to its Strategic Goal |
| Immediate Tactical Goal | A near term goal the team is working on now |
Teams move toward these goals in small experiments: form a hypothesis, run an experiment, inspect the results and adapt the goals or the approach.
Tools teams may use
Teams often use tools such as product roadmaps, business model canvases or impact maps to describe vision and strategy. Scrum does not prescribe any of them. Used empirically, a roadmap is a forecast that changes with evidence, not a commitment to dates.
If a question asks what guides the Scrum Team over many Sprints, look for the Product Goal. If it asks for the long term reason the product exists, the answer is the vision.
How the exam asks about this
- "What is the commitment for the Product Backlog?" The Product Goal.
- "How many Product Goals should the Scrum Team pursue at once?" One.
- "A competitor changes the market. What should the Product Owner do with the strategy?" Inspect the evidence and adapt the Product Goal and Product Backlog.
What to remember for the exam
- A product is a vehicle to deliver value with a clear boundary, known stakeholders and well-defined users or customers.
- Vision and strategy come from Scrum.org guidance; the Product Goal comes from the Scrum Guide.
- The Product Owner develops and explicitly communicates the Product Goal.
- One Product Goal at a time; fulfil or abandon it before the next.
- Strategy is a hypothesis to test with released Increments.
- Scrum does not require roadmaps or canvases.
A fixed multi year feature list presented as "the strategy" ignores empiricism. A strategy should change when the evidence says it is wrong.
Common mistakes
Treating the vision as a feature list. A vision is about why and for whom.
Running several Product Goals in parallel. The Scrum Team pursues one at a time.
Calling a roadmap a Scrum artifact. The artifacts are the Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog and Increment.
Check yourself
What is a product according to the Scrum Guide?
A vehicle to deliver value, with a clear boundary, known stakeholders and well-defined users or customers.
Who develops and communicates the Product Goal?
The Product Owner.
What are the three levels of goals in Evidence-Based Management?
Strategic Goal, Intermediate Goal and Immediate Tactical Goal.
Topic 1 of 5 in Managing Products with Agility
Test yourself on Managing Products with Agility
The full Scrum.org PSPO I question bank has 1,065 questions, with timed practice exams and an explanation for every answer.
This study guide is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Scrum.org. Vendor names, certification names and exam codes are trademarks of their respective owners and are used for identification only.