There are lots of variations in how to approach planning for product development, but we find that 3 levels are essential:
Level 1 – High Level Vision or Purpose
Every product team benefits from a high level vision or purpose. What better future are we trying to create? What’ll it look like? Why does it matter? This provides the big “why,” and it should have just enough “what” to make it clear, broadly, what’s in and out of scope.
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More on vision:
Level 2 – Meaningful Increments of Value
Next, every team should be working towards meaningful increments of value. These connect the dots between the big picture and the day-to-day work. They make it clear when you’ve accumulated enough value to ship it incrementally (or at least to seek wider feedback). We like minimum marketable features, or MMFs, for this job.
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Level 3 – Small Slices of Value
Finally, the day-to-day work should be organized around small slices of value. This keeps work focused on what matters, provides visibility into progress, and creates opportunities for frequent feedback. When a team is working on user-facing software, we like user stories for this. Other products may not use user stories, but there should be something similar that represents 1-3 day slices of value and progress.
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Some teams add strategic steps between MMFs and vision. Some choose to collect multiple MMFs into larger releases because they have barriers to shipping a feature at a time or because it makes sense to time a significant release for a market window. That’s fine. But every team benefits from those 3 essential levels.
Want to learn how to quickly and effectively craft a vision, identify features that matter, and slice your features into good user stories? Join Richard’s next CSPO workshop on Oct 15-17. More info and register here.
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