In The 2020 Scrum Guide a new concept – Product Goal – was introduced. The Product Goal describes a future state of the product which can serve as a target for the Scrum Team to plan against. It basically serves as a long-term objective for a Scrum Team to achieve.
Until now having such a long-term goal (aka vision) wasn’t mandatory which made it more difficult to select correct PBIs to work on. It also may have resulted in developers thinking about each PBI is an isolation without considering how it impacts the “bigger picture”. Hence, in my opinion, an introduction of the Product Goal is a great idea. It should provide focus for the Scrum Team toward a larger valuable objective.
It’s the Product Owner who is accountable for developing and explicitly communicating the Product Goal. Each sprint should bring the product closer to the overall Product Goal. In the sprint planning meeting PBIs are discussed, including how they map to the Product Goal. Similarly, progress toward the Product Goal is discussed with stakeholders in the Sprint Review meeting.
