Product Vision vs. Product Goal

I’ve always heard about the vision of a product but never the goal. This article helped me to understand that yes, a vision is important but so are product goals because they can change over time, particularly as the company grows and the market shifts. Changes in product goals could potentially be the key to survival for some businesses.

@Robin, Thank you for sharing what you learnt. I think the Product Goal being relatively new from the Scrum Guide, it was important to connect it with a real business example. The product goal then drives the items in the product backlog

I found this very interesting and I think it does a great job of separating the overall vision of the company and the individual product goals that help the company achieve that vision. The product goals can then can trickle down and help define and drive future enhancements, features and initiatives to best achieve that overall vision of the company. I think adding Product Goals is a good fit and helps to keep the company on track to reach their vision.

This article gives a clear understanding about the product vision and goals. Product vision helps to understand the future state of the product and what problems needs to be solved for end users whereas product goals are more measurable that helps the team to achieve product vision for long term. Product goals can be changed as per the requirements.

I always thought that the product vision & the goal would be the same. Thanks for detailing out your thought process along with the example.

The article gives an exceptional illustration of how an original product progression evolved beyond the planned product scope. The company met its goal for the DVD distribution: then expelled how they envisioned a creative style to influenced a new life of future products. The “blue sky” tree analogy represents a clear example of product evolution over time. Great job!

I always thought that the product vision & the goal would be the same. Thanks for detailing out your thought process along with the example. From what I understood, Product vision is something the SCRUM team can see, and the Product Goal is an observable outcome that has to be achieved within a certain timeframe and the product goal can be further divided into Sprint goal.

Product vision and product goal explained very well. The example makes it more clear.

It will be nice to talk about this in class a little more. Seems like the product goals are good ways to keep the teams engaged too.

I really enjoy the use of the product tree example. It put into focus how the product vision trickles down into segmented product goals that are meant to achieve that vision. Then using the product goal to determine how one prioritizes the product backlog. Overall, I think this method is would be great for maintaining the focus of the team and ensuring the work you are doing aligns with the purpose of the product.

If I had to summarise my learnings from this article I would say that the Product Vision is the philosophy behind all actions within an organization whilst the goals which are more dynamic in nature are the means to achieve that vision.

The ‘Product Tree’ isn’t something I’ve come across before, but it’s really easily applicable to the work I do. Thank you for sharing – I think this will be really useful for my role in developing POC products and prioritising the ones we want to develop further. Would you say this is something that can be done in stages, for example filling in the bottom two levels at the start of the project and it the POC is proven successful, come back to complete the other levels?

Hey Anil,

If I understand correctly, the product vision is the purpose of a product, why it is being created and what it aims to achieve for the customer and then the product goals are the steps that can be taken to get towards that (smaller steps usually 3-6 months)

Great article! The approach you choose for explaining are both to understand and thorough. The real world examples really help put the concepts into perspective.

I look forward to using this product tree to help our team better understand where we are going and how we plan to get there.

Interesting and informative read. I would like to know how to arrive at product and sprint goals. Whose inputs are required to get to these?

The explanations are very clear. The links to tools we can use for this are very helpful.

I like the correlation of the product goals to the roadmap. The stakeholders really appreciate the communication so they understand there is a timeline for their goals to be met. This helps to explain the softer timeline of Sprints to a C Level or Higher Internal Customer

Great illustration using product tree to understand the product goal and the vision. It provides the macroeconomic view of the product for a continued purpose in the ever changing customer expectations. Product vision with high value statement outperforms the market.

I agree that having clear product goals, a Product Owner can do a better job prioritizing/sorting the product backlog. I like how you pull it all together and show how the Goal, Vision, and Timeline complement one another.