Product Vision
Road to Mastery — Season 2 — Episode 6
With Serious Scrum we envision an open environment for practitioners who dare ask for help and are committed to practice Scrum well. We help each other in improving what we do professionally as if we were direct colleagues.
We envision a place with quality content core to Scrum, filtering out most of the noise. A tsunami of sense. Serious Scrum is universally accessible enabling professionals to exchange experiences (and job opportunities), connect with authors and trainers personally, and help each other(!) independent of the Scrum institutes. We’ve raised our rally cry: “Are you serious?” and are thankful to so many of you who contribute.
The authors of the Scrum Guide envisioned a future where product development could be approached through empirical process control over the (dominant) defined process control. That it would result in products of much higher value with much less waste. Its vision centered around the idea of cross-functional, self-organising teams approaching development iteratively and incrementally. Not through a complex methodology, but a lightweight framework battling complexity with simplicity, leaving all the freedom on the canvas for teams to envision and establish a world of their own. This vision rallied millions.
But how can ‘product vision’ be approached with Scrum?
“Scrum is a framework for developing, delivering, and sustaining complex products.” — The Scrum Guide
Developing, delivering and sustaining…hmmm. But what about Envisioning?
Does Scrum start after the product has been envisioned?
Well, generally yes. That said, Scrum too is applied to research and identify viable markets and product capabilities. Scrum is a viable approach to identifying market opportunities from which new valuable products can be envisioned. With Scrum a product emerges, but a vision (in general) does not. Pivots might occur, yes, but that is generally about shifting the way the market, people and technology are approached.
The raison d’être for a Scrum Team is to navigate through complex adaptive problems to creatively deliver products of the highest possible value. A shared product vision equals a shared destination. A definition of ‘highest possible value’ might be found within a product vision. The Scrum Guide, being lightweight, naturally has very little to say about vision. Just the one measly (but oh so important) sentence that:
“The increment is a step toward a vision” — The Scrum Guide
Transparency over vision
The Product Owner might (or might not) have been the one to have manifested the vision, but is most certainly the one to maximize transparency over it. This means developing a shared understanding of it with the Scrum Team and stakeholders. The Scrum Master helps the Product Owner facilitate the means, communication/interactions required to achieve this.
The authors of the Scrum Guide might simply define a product vision as ‘a goal’ without being prescriptive on how to envision it. Transparency over the progress towards the vision is not only created by inspecting the increments toward the vision, but also by how the increments are received by the target customer segment for whatever the top value proposition is.
A sure way to increase transparency is by enhancing visibility so everyone can keep their eye on the horizon. The vision might be presented onto the board, canvasses, and posters in the office. But really, you can go all out creatively and for example spam it on coffee mugs, posters, laptop stickers, pencils, the company elevator doors. Market it to your team, so they can market it to the market.
But the best way is to keep communicating the vision in person. And Scrum provides opportunities to do so.
How does Vision translate to the Sprint Events?
Now, to kick-off a Sprint at the Sprint Planning a Product Owner clearly expresses the objective(s) and then discusses, with the rest of the team, what could make for a great Sprint Goal. When Product Owners use this opportunity and succeed in expressing to the team how the objectives support the vision, the team will show an increased level of commitment. When they understand the big picture they will be more capable of self-organizing the approach to achieve it.
During the Daily Scrum, if a team concludes the Sprint Goal is challenged, a good understanding of the vision can guide them back on track.
Naturally, Sprint Reviews provide opportunities for all who ‘hold stakes’ to align on how the increments are bringing everyone closer to the vision. This reduces the need for proxy communication. In a way, where Daily Scrums serve to monitor progress towards a Sprint Goal, Sprint Reviews are the way to collectively monitor progress toward a product vision.
Often, during Sprint Retrospectives, team members share opposite viewpoints or have different opinions about what direction to take or which improvements to implement. This might cause a status-quo where everyone is paddling in different directions with no one in control over where the boat is heading. This is why it is so essential for the Product Owner to be present during the Sprint Retrospective! The Product Owner can clearly express where to pull and where to let go so they can continue heading towards the envisioned direction.
But what makes for a good vision?
“A good vision needs to be Focused, Emotional, Practical, and Pervasive.” — The Professional Product Owner by Don McGreal & Ralph Jocham.
Now, a vision cannot be anything to anyone. It attracts, but also deters. Serious Scrum’s vision will deter those who apply and adapt elements of Scrum in a casual way. We might deter those who feel overwhelmed by the candor and feedback they receive from editors on an article they’ve submitted. We might be called Scrumdamentalists or ‘un-agile’ due to us being focused on this vision. But equally it attracts those who are helpful and committed yet open-minded, eager to learn and eager to share experiences.
Will achieving the vision make for one hell of a good story?
When a vision reveals emotional, life-changing, and social ambitions it helps teams develop solutions that don’t just sit all the way down at the functional level. A good vision can help teams shift from being a feature-factory to being outcome-oriented.
In the episode on what makes a great Sprint Goal we covered the difference between an empirical versus a defined goal, where the first poses a complex challenge and the latter defines what has to be done to come to a solution. A vision is more about defining a valuable (or the most valuable) destination which justifies (and inspires) the risk-taking, investment and exploration to reach it.
Now as for creative techniques for developing vision, I can list methods like a Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Mapping, or creating ‘Product Boxes’:
But often a vision is already there, it settled somewhere deep within a passionate entrepreneur with a strong incentive for action. This also means that the best Product Owners are (or act like) entrepreneurs. They are empowered and respected by the entire organization in making decisions as long as they remain deeply involved with the Development Team.
For this episode, I’ve been primarily inspired by The Professional Product Owner by Don McGreal & Ralph Jocham. A book I highly recommend for those on a road to professional and distinguished Product Ownership.
Thank you for staying tuned and joining me on this road to mastery.
Continue the Road to Mastery:
Part I: Down the Rabbit Hole is now available.
