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Sprint Zero: Define the Vision Before You Build the Backlog

Sprint Zero isn’t about figuring out every detail before development starts. Agile teams will continue learning and adjusting throughout delivery. It’s about making sure the team has enough clarity to start building intentionally instead of simply starting work. Because a backlog without a vision is really just a list of tasks.

Nan Ross

8/12/20261 min read

You can’t start a new Agile project by jumping straight into user stories and building a product backlog.

Before the team can decide what to build, they need to understand why they are building it.

That starts with the product vision.

Without a clear vision, teams can create dozens of perfectly written user stories and still build the wrong thing. The backlog may look organized, but if no one clearly understands the business problem, desired outcome, stakeholders, or direction of the product, the team is essentially planning work without a destination.

This is where Sprint Zero can help.

Sprint Zero creates space for the early discovery and planning needed to give the delivery team enough direction to move forward.

During this stage, teams may focus on:

Defining the business problem and product vision
Identifying key stakeholders
Understanding the users and their needs
Establishing the initial scope and priorities
Identifying risks, assumptions, and dependencies
Developing a high-level product roadmap
Creating an initial product backlog based on what has been learned

The key is the sequence.

You don’t begin with, “Let’s write some user stories.”

You begin with questions such as:

What problem are we solving?
Who are we solving it for?
What outcome are we trying to achieve?

Once those questions are clearer, the team can start translating that vision into features, user stories, acceptance criteria, and prioritized backlog items.

Sprint Zero isn’t about figuring out every detail before development starts. Agile teams will continue learning and adjusting throughout delivery.

It’s about making sure the team has enough clarity to start building intentionally instead of simply starting work.

Because a backlog without a vision is really just a list of tasks.