Article Summary: This article discusses the importance of introducing and defining product goals for Scrum teams. It emphasizes the need for team members to understand and align with these goals in order to drive meaningful change. The author introduces a tool called the Goals Portfolio Analysis, which helps identify weaknesses and gaps in the connection between company and team goals. The analysis categorizes goals based on uncertainty and autonomy, providing a visual representation of the goals landscape within the organization.
Are you already a Scrum Master for more than three years? Then you will surely recognize this dialogue:
You: “Hey, team. Since the last Scrum Guide update, Scrum teams need a product goal. We don’t have one yet. Do we want to define it?” Team: “No, thanks. We already have enough goals.”
There is a simple explanation why this approach does not work. It has something to do with spaghetti.
Some time ago, my wife and I went out to an Italian restaurant. We sat by the window and had a good view of the stone oven in the middle of the restaurant. From my seat, I could watch the pizza makers at work, which made me regret choosing spaghetti. Suddenly, my wife interrupted my daydreams. She pointed to my chin and said, “Honey, you have something there. Get rid of it.” Since I couldn’t see anything, I got up and went to the bathroom. When I saw the stray tomato sauce on my chin in the mirror, I knew what she meant and grabbed some napkins.
This brings us back to the real question: How can you help your team introduce a product goal? How do you get them to assess whether they have the right types of goals in the company? How do you find out if there are weaknesses in the connection between company and team goals?
Focus on the problems that everyone can see.
I only removed the sauce when I saw it myself, not when my wife pointed it out to me. What does that mean? If you want to introduce product goals, you have to help everyone on the team see what you see. Things that other people don’t see won’t change them.
If you want change, you have to be their mirror!
If you want to help a team discover gaps in the goal landscape, I have a mirror for you. I call it the Goals Portfolio Analysis.
This analysis involves categorizing goals into two categories, and in the end, it creates a table that makes the portfolio of goals in the company visible. I have used this tool with many teams and companies, and since it works universally, I also explain it to participants in my “PAL-EBM” training.
Category 1: The degree of uncertainty determines the goal
We can categorize goals into three groups based on the degree of uncertainty about whether and when we will achieve them:
Strategic goals: These goals describe something important that the company wants to achieve. They are ambitious and distant. Until strategic goals are achieved, there are still many uncertainties to overcome.
Since strategic goals are ambitious and the path to them is uncertain, the company needs a set of feasible goals. These are intermediary goals. When they are achieved, the company receives feedback that it is getting closer to the strategic goal.
The path to the mid-term goal is still not completely known. Therefore, immediate goals are also needed. These are short-term goals that a team works towards. When they are achieved, the team has made progress towards the intermediary goal.
Category 2: The type of goal determines the team’s autonomy
The second category does not describe the degree of uncertainty or the time horizon but the autonomy it allows the team.
Let’s look at the “Program Logic Model” of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. It is a simple and widely used form of a graphic impact model. It illustrates how a service or project works as a linear relationship between cause and effect.
The basic structure consists of five elements:
Resources and Inputs: The things the company invests in.
Activities: These are the things people in the organization do.
Outputs: These are the things the organization produces.
Outcomes: These are improvements experienced by the user of the service or product.
Impacts: An impact expresses the effects that the improvements have on users and customers for the company.
The last four elements of the model help us describe goals. A goal can describe what people should do, what should be produced, what improvement the user should experience, or what result should occur for the company.
This allows us to see how different goals allow for different levels of autonomy. A goal that describes an activity does not give developers any room for maneuver except to perform that activity. On the other hand, a goal that describes an output gives the team the opportunity to choose which activities enable that output. A goal that describes an outcome allows for the free choice of which output is produced through which activity. Finally, an impact goal allows for the choice of which combination of outcome, output, and activity achieves that impact.
Tool: Goals Portfolio Analysis
With these two categories, a Goals Portfolio Analysis can be created.
The vertical axis describes the autonomy that a goal allows. So, activity, output, outcome, or impact. The horizontal axis describes the degree of uncertainty that exists in achieving the goal. So, strategic goal, intermediary goal, and immediate goal.
This results in the following matrix:
If you enter the team and company goals on this matrix, you will get a mirror that reflects the goals portfolio of the company.
This can uncover weaknesses in company goals. Let’s consider this situation:
From this, we can conclude that an intermediary goal is missing to assess progress towards achieving the strategic goal. In Scrum, we call such an intermediary goal a product goal. It should describe an outcome to give the team enough autonomy to figure out how it can influence the strategic goal.
Action Items:
1. Define a product goal for the Scrum team to align with the Scrum Guide update.
2. Conduct a goals portfolio analysis to identify any gaps or weaknesses in the connection between company and team goals.
3. Implement a goals portfolio analysis tool to categorize goals based on uncertainty and autonomy.
4. Fill in the goals portfolio matrix with team and company goals to visualize the goal landscape.
5. Identify any missing intermediate goals, such as a product goal, to assess progress towards the strategic goal.
