Not Having a Clear Vision

Here’s what can happen when a product owner doesn’t have a clear and well-known product vision to guide their decision making:

Nobody in the organization, not even the Scrum team, knows why the heck they’re building this product, but they’ve been doing it for years and have spent a lot of money, blood, sweat, and tears on it. The product owner works with the stakeholders and customers, then puts those interactions into the product backlog and orders them, but with no clear rhyme or reason. There’s no strife or unhappiness as high-quality work is being delivered, but you notice a lack of energy and excitement around the product. Sprint reviews are like a library, interactions with stakeholders are dry and focus on just the product backlog items they care about that were delivered. There’s no discussion of the overall direction of the product and what value the future might hold.

In a retrospective, the development team brings up the fact that sprints are beginning to feel like a hamster wheel: They just keep going and going with no end in sight. There doesn’t seem to be an end goal or objective, just more work to do.

What is the vision for the product you’re working on right now? It should be circulating in your head like the lyrics of an ’80s Madonna song. Without a product vision and an accompanying measurable outcome, it’s hard for anyone to give feedback on how a product can be successful. This can lead to a product owner who frequently changes his mind about where the product should be heading or what the definition of “value” is for this project. The PO may even start taking orders from stakeholders, trying to appease their every demand, which, as we’ve discussed, is not the way things should work in Scrum.

If your team doesn’t have a clear product vision, then creating such a vision should be the product owner’s top priority. Work with the PO to find a way to create the vision, which is the overarching direction of a product. Having a clear vision lends itself to more in-depth conversations with stakeholders, gives the development team a clear understanding of what success looks like, and provides guardrails for every decision the product owner makes.

Measurements that can validate the vision’s success are an absolute necessity. If these measurements indicate that the team isn’t succeeding, then perhaps the vision needs to be adjusted—or maybe it’s no longer worth pursuing. The product owner needs quantifiable ways to determine whether the team is succeeding in achieving the vision, as well as whether the vision is even still worth it.

Consider that the single greatest way to motivate a development team is to let them see the impact that their work has on the world. If a product owner provides a clear product vision with outcomes, measurements, and metrics, that impact will be clearly visible to the team and the organization. This can improve morale and prove that the financial investments the organization has made in the product were worthwhile.

If your product lacks a clear product vision, get started yesterday with your product owner to create one. Be sure to solicit input from all team members and stakeholders. If you’re having a tough time deciding where to start, you can start with a single word, as we explain in the following sidebar. Once everyone has a clear sense of where the product is heading, they’ll be more motivated and engaged in creating a great product.

The one-word pitch method is described in Daniel Pink’s book To Sell is Human.^[7] It’s one of many methods you can suggest for working with your product owner to create a vision. There are many other good ones as well, such as Roman Pichler’s Product Vision Board^[8] or the Product Vision Box from the book Innovation Games.^[9] Experiment with various methods and find what’s right for your particular situation. And be sure to remind the product owner that the vision might change. The PO should frequently validate the vision against the metrics that accompany it, and should regularly revisit the vision to make sure it’s still relevant.