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Product Goal missing from competency Managing Products with Agility

Last post 03:35 pm April 28, 2025 by Ian Mitchell
6 replies
10:47 am April 28, 2025

While revisiting the focus areas of the PSPO-II certification (freshening up), I noticed that the Product Goal is missing entirely from the Managing Products with Agility competency. Instead, it focuses on vision and strategy. While those are obviously important for POs to be knowledgable about, I did expect the Product Goal to make an appearance. 

To me, it now feels a bit like this content is based on de 2017 Scrum Guide, but I may of course be wrong there. What do you think?


11:44 am April 28, 2025

It's not missing.

There are several key focus areas within the Managing Products with Agility Competency. One of those focus areas is Product Backlog Management, which includes the Formulating a Product Goal activity and a module on the Product Goal. Although only a small number of resources are linked in the module, there are a lot more resources under the Product Goal topic.


12:39 pm April 28, 2025

I strongly suggest you to read Practical Product Management for Product Owners: Creating Winning Products with the Professional Product Owner Stances (The Professional Scrum Series) 1st Edition - Chris Lukassen -Robbin Schuurman, It is a must for those studying for PSPO II, and there is a a lot of information about the product goal,Youŕe right in the sense that books before 2020 Don´t have information about the product goal,only about the product vision.


12:44 pm April 28, 2025

just more two cents,I would have fail in both PSK1 and SPS if I have not read these auxiliary books from People that are involved in a way or another with Scrum.org,the open assessments were really not enough.

And of course the books are the best if you can´t pay for the courses. 

So I think reading Practical Product Management for Product Owners: Creating Winning Products with the Professional Product Owner Stances (The Professional Scrum Series) 1st Edition - Chris Lukassen -Robbin Schuurman,  will really help a lot.


12:46 pm April 28, 2025

Ah yes, I had not gotten to that page yet, thanks for the link! I spoke too soon.

Nevertheless, I would have expected a more prominent position for the Product Goal, which appears in the Scrum Guide 15 times and is listed as the first Product Owner accountability. The word Vision was removed from the 2020 Guide altogether, yet has its own learning series.


01:00 pm April 28, 2025

Thanks for the tips Marcello! Yes indeed, those books are a very good source of information. As are the classes!

In this case, I was just trying to point out that giving the Product Goal more prominent visibility in the PSPO-II learning path might be good. The Product- and Sprint Goal are some of the (if not THE) most undervalued and misunderstood concepts in Scrum, but are essential in applying Scrum successfully.

 


03:35 pm April 28, 2025

The Product Goal is integral to the Product Backlog, so it is perhaps not unreasonable to subsume it within Product Backlog Management. The Scrum Guide describes the framework, and hence accountabilities rather than competencies.


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