Hi Harri,

Thank you for your comment. I fully agree that questions like “Which market (segment) should the product address?” and “What makes the product stand out?” should be addressed. This is, however, best done as part of the discovery work IMO, and the answers are best captured in form of a product strategy and product roadmap. To put it differently, I like to work with the following model: Product vision/strategy – product roadmap – product backlog, as I describe my article “A Strategy Map” in more detail.

Hope this helps!

There are new products for a new market (need unknown), new products for “red sea” market (solution unknown) and new releases of products for very different kind of applications. Value may come from learning fast, being different and loveable, fixing bad functionality and adding features, being on time for xmas market etc. Would it be better to understand what really is the VALUE and RISK and communicate that to developers rather than just keep the backlog in minimum and concise?

Hi Amy,

Thanks for sharing your question. You should find an answer to it in the following articles:

Succeeding with Innovation and Maintenance
Technical Debt and Product Success

Please take a look and let me know if you need more input.

Hi Jim,

I recommend that you define what value the product should create for the business and state its business goals when creating the product strategy. If you want to rank individual features, then I would suggest that you use a cost-benefit analysis (depending on the business goals of your product).

Does this help?