Agile product management

Agile product management, Product development, Product discovery, Agile product management – vision, mission, goal, roadmap, backlog and MVP

Is an approach to product development where teams iterate frequently, continuously adapt the roadmap to feedback and insights, and work in short sprints. Agile product management is a flexible approach throughout the product development process so teams can adjust to feedback and create products that align with customer needs, an adaptive approach to product strategy planning and implementation where teams work in alignment to achieve product goals and a process relaying on constant improvement and learnings, largely based on customer feedback and analysis to build a product customers love.

Agile product development

Is a set of product development practices and methods based on the principles and values of the Agile Manifesto. Agile product development encourages adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and continual improvement. Product development is an adaptive approach to product planning and implementation so that organizations can quickly respond to feedback and build products that customers love.

Agile product discovery

Product Discovery is a method of getting a deep understanding of your customers in order to develop products that fully meet their needs. It helps the team identify potential opportunities, develop products that are both valuable and feasible, and helps the company avoid wasting valuable resources on projects that nobody wants.

Determining the goals and principles of creating a product
Evaluating the capabilities of the product
Prioritize the key issue to be resolved
Identifying key customers and users
Conducting user research
Building a map of interaction with the product
Prototyping
Choosing a Minimum Viable Product – MVP
Testing

The Agile product discovery phases:

Researching and understanding user problems
Ideating solutions
Creating prototypes
Creating alignment & shared understanding among internal & external stakeholders
Testing and validating ideas
Refining results

Product vision and mission

A product vision, or product vision statement, describes the overarching long-term mission of the product. Vision statements are aspirational and communicate concisely where the product hopes to go and what it hopes to achieve in the long term. The vision statement serves as a guide and reminder to all stakeholders involved in a product’s development about the shared objective they’re trying to achieve with this product. It also answers the question of why you are creating a product and what your company hopes to accomplish with it in the future.

the essence and long-term mission of a product
includes the product’s target customers, differentiating factors, key benefits and more
a statement that sets aspirational goals for a product
a guiding star that prevents from adding unnecessary features or having conflicting concepts
centers everyone on clear goals that serve as the foundation for the new creation

Product vision statement format:

FOR target customer
WHO statement of need or opportunity
THE product name IS A product category
THAT key benefit, reason to buy
UNLIKE primary competitive alternative
OUR PRODUCT statement of primary differentiation

Product goal

In Agile product management, the Product Goal is a long-term objective that describes a future state of the product which can serve as a target to plan against.

a measurable and observable result or outcome which has one or more objectives that have to be achieved within a certain timeframe
a measurable and actionable target describing what the Scrum Team aims to build in the months ahead and for what purpose
describes a future state of the product which can serve as a target for the Scrum Team to plan against
a bridge between the product vision – which is very long-term and somewhat vague – and a team’s short-term Sprint Goals

Product roadmap

A product roadmap is a plan of action for how a product will evolve over time. It outlines future product functionality and shows when new features will be released. It also provides crucial context for the team’s everyday work and should be responsive to shifts in the competitive landscape.

A product roadmap is an Agile product management guide that describes the steps you need to take in order to reach your product goals. It’s a plan of action that lines up a product’s short-term and long-term goals. It also outlines how you hope to achieve those product goals.

a high-level visual summary that maps out the vision and direction of a product’s offering over time
communicates the why and what behind what you’re building
a guiding strategic document as well as a plan for executing the product strategy
is essential to communicating how short-term efforts match long-term business goals
a shared source of truth that outlines the vision, direction, prioritiesa and progress of a product over time
a plan of action that aligns the organization around short and long-term goals for the product or project and how they will be achieved

The product roadmap’s goals:

Describe the vision and strategy
Provide a guiding document for executing the strategy
Get internal stakeholders in alignment
Facilitate discussion of options and scenario planning
Help communicate with external stakeholders, including customers

Minimum Viable Product – MVP

A minimum viable product MVP is the release of a new product (or a major new feature) that is used to validate customer needs and demands prior to developing a more fully featured product. To reduce development time and effort, an MVP includes only the minimum capabilities required to be a viable customer solution. In Agile product management, an MVP is a product with enough features to attract early-adopter customers and validate a product idea early in the product development cycle. The MVP helps the product team to receive user feedback as quickly as possible to iterate and improve the product.

that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort
a product that has been minimally developed but still meets the requirements of the market, used to test out ideas quickly and cheaply before investing a lot of time and resources into developing something bigger
a product that has just enough features to satisfy the needs of early customers and, more importantly, give them something to provide feedback on to shape the future of the product

The reason behind the idea of MVP is that you produce an actual product that you can offer to customers and observe their actual behavior with the product or service. That is because seeing what people actually do with respect to a product is much more reliable than asking people what they would do.

The purpose of a Minimum Viable Product:

release a product to the market as quickly as possible
test an idea with real users before committing a large budget to the product’s full development
learn what resonates with the company’s target market and what doesn’t

Product Backlog

The Product Backlog is an emergent, ordered list of what is needed to improve the product and the single source of work undertaken by the product development team. The most important items are shown at the top of the product backlog so the team knows what to deliver first.

a prioritized list of work for the development team that is derived from the roadmap and its requirements
a list of the new features, changes to existing features, bug fixes, infrastructure changes or other activities that a team may deliver in order to achieve a specific outcome
the long-term plan for the product, where the vision is itemized into concrete deliverable items that make the product more valuable

In Agile product management, the development team doesn’t work through the backlog at the product owner’s pace and the product owner isn’t pushing work to the development team. Instead, the development team pulls work from the product backlog as there is capacity for it.

Product Backlog Item PBI

A Product Backlog Item is a single element of work that exists in the product backlog. PBIs can represent user stories, epics, specifications, bugs or change requirements. A PBI may be a feature, a defect, technical work, research work or a proof of concept.

Agile product management in Scrum:

Agile mindset