Understanding Product Goals by talking about Epics
Maarten Dalmijn
Author of 'Driving Value with Sprint Goals' | Helping teams to beat the Feature Factory | Speaking, Training and Consulting all over the world @ dalmyn.com
We are all familiar with Epics, despite there being no universal definition out there. Then the Product Goal was introduced in 2020, and people were thinking WTH is this?
Luckily we can turn to our trusty old friend the Epic for an explanation.
To me, an Epic is something you don't work on directly. It's too uncertain, too rough, and too big. You need to break it down into smaller slices of Product Backlog Items before you can start working on it.
Just like you don't work directly on an Epic, you don't work on a Product Goal. You work on Sprint Goals that will help realize the Product Goal.
Product Goals have the same relationship to Sprint Goals, as Epics to Product Backlog Items.
Here's a picture I created to make the relationship clearer:
I hope this picture makes sense. Feel free to leave a comment if you believe it could be improved further! :)
Senior Consultant, Entwickler & Projektleiter bei Ventum Consulting | Agile Methoden, Scrum, DevOps, Python
1 年Just used this at BMW Group Financial Services Australia to make a point about agile Requirements Engineering. Thanks, Maarten Dalmijn!
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1 年Great post! Thanks for the useful diagram. I was about to suggest a change when I spot Jonathan's comment below suggesting the same.
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1 年this is great and I agree with some answers here it still doesn't really help, when there is no alignment within the org or team WHAT do WE understand what it is? Especially the JIRA issue needs to be tackled. E.G. in a Working Agreement Workshop or, and this might be a better place: in a user story mapping session.
Love helping Agile teams become more outcome focused. Honest. Open. Respectful.
2 年Trying to explain Epics and Product Goals to someone who's not familiar with Agile is like trying to teach a cat to swim - it's possible, but it's going to take a lot of patience and persistence. Think of Epics as the big picture, like the ultimate scratching post for the cat, and Product Goals as the individual steps to get there, like the little paw paddles the cat needs to make in the water. Both are important and require a strategic plan, but in the end, it's all about achieving success and getting that purrfectly manicured product ??
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2 年Your product goal cannot be “making a tree”. Correct? Well, thats what the picture tells us. It could be making furniture from trees, if I am not mistaken.