Scrum and Business Strategy
Although the concept of a “business strategy” is not mentioned in the Scrum Guide, it provides vital context that helps the organization define products and their goals.
The relationship between Mission/Vision, Business Strategy, Product Vision, Product Strategy, and Product Goals
Product Owners use the business strategy as guidance to their product planning activities. From the business strategy, they craft a product vision and product strategy for each of the products in the company’s portfolio. From this, they set the first Product Goal and the team creates a Product Backlog to fulfill it.
Establishing a business strategy is a complex problem that requires an empirical approach. The business strategy should be continually adapted as more is learned. Ideally, the business strategy should outline several experiments for validating assumptions that are made in the strategy. For example, experiments to:
- Investigate a hypothesis that a flattened organizational structure will help deliver value
- Validate that a new market segment is worthy of investment
- Understand whether the use of new technology would be viable and worth the necessary expenditure
An agile approach to strategic planning is to support the self-management of product teams by providing clear goals, boundaries and accountabilities. This can be done by performing just enough business strategy planning to provide the guidance that product leaders need to make decisions and formulate the company’s product or product portfolio.
Helpful Tools
Business Model Canvas, a tool for facilitating discussions of business or product strategy
Lean Canvas, another tool for facilitating discussions of business or product strategy that uses concepts borrowed from the Lean Startup community
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