Overview

The product vision seeks to answer the most fundamental questions about a project: “Who is the target user?”, “What goal are we helping them achieve?” and “How do we envision the solution?” It sets the goal of the project as a fixed point that can be easily shared with stakeholders. To promote this, the product vision should be clear, concise and easily understandable in a way that draws people in. When developing the product vision, the product owner should take the lead and the entire Agile team should be engaged. There are several tools at the team’s disposal for facilitating the creation of an effective product vision.

Tools

Elevator Pitch

The Elevator Pitch distills the product vision down to its essence. The development of a concise elevator pitch is a valuable exercise for the team. It consists of completing the following template:

For [targeted users] who [statement of business need], the [product name] is a [product category] that [key value delivered by product].
Unlike [alternative product], our product [key differentiation for product].

Design the Product Box

To further develop a common understanding of the product vision, another helpful exercise for the product owner and Agile team is to create a visual image of the product box. This involves coming up with a product name, a graphic and three to four key bullet points for the front of the box as well as a detailed feature description for the back of the box.