Recently I was coaching a team who’s PO didn’t have a product vision. So I got the whole team together and did this exercise and I have to say it came out better than I even expected so I thought i’d share it with the coalition.
Total Time: 60 - 90 min depending on team size.
Prep:
- Invite the entire Scrum Team (or whoever is involved in creating the product)
- Download and printout Roman Pichler’s Product Vision Board. http://www.romanpichler.com/tools/vision-board/
- Book space where you can write on flipcharts, walls etc. If distributed use a virtual whiteboard tool or similar.
Execution:
- Hand out product vision board to everyone and explain why a product vision is so important.
- Review each column in the board and tell them not to worry about the vision statement in the top section yet. (5 Min)
- Start with the first column “Target Group.” Ask the team to write down what they think the target groups are on their own paper. After a few minutes ask them to volunteer the groups they came up with.
- Write the responses somewhere where everyone can see. Then discuss with everyone included the PO if this makes sense and start to build a common understanding.
- Proceed to repeat that until all the columns are done. You should have four seperate lists based on the four columns. (About 30 min in total)
- Then, Explain what a vision statement is using the product vision board as a guide if you like.
- Tell them to each write their own product vision statement based on the four lists you all created and make sure the vision statement is no longer than a few sentences. (5 min)
- Go around the room and have each person read their vision statement out loud. (5-10 min)
- Ask the team to give their opinion on their favorite parts or keywords they heard from all the product vision statements. Make another visual list of they keywords. (5-10 min)
- Ask the team to write one more iteration based on these keywords or phrases. (5min)
- Ask them to read them out loud again (5 min)
- Have the team vote on their favorites narrowing it down to the top 2 or 3 (If one isn’t the obvious favorite) (5 min)
- Try to come to an agreement on the best statement, if no agreement can be made have the PO pick his/her favorite of the top top 2-3. (5 min)
- Write the vision statement on the wall/team space etc anywhere it can be seen all the time. (For the team I most recently did this with, I wrote it on the wall in their team room and also have it in their team working space)