How Should Product Goals Be Defined?
Product Goals should focus on outcomes—specific changes in user behavior that drive business results. The Product Backlog then becomes a series of hypotheses and experiments aimed at achieving these outcomes.
Metaphor
Setting a Product Goal is like choosing a theme for a party: “a cozy autumn dinner” guides the vibe, while the menu, music, and decorations get figured out later. The theme provides alignment without locking in the specifics.
In Scrum, the Product Goal gives that guiding vision, and the backlog becomes the experiments to bring it to life.
Defining experiments to pursue the Product Goal aligns with the idea that each Sprint is an experiment, with Sprint Goals serving as experimental hypotheses.
Works Consulted
In addition to any sources cited above, the following works informed my thinking:(1)