Let’s say in this scenario we have an online gaming company that historically has only built complex role-playing games. Now let’s say the head of product management wants to build a Yahtzee game. Here’s the process to go back and figure out what the problem is that someone thinks Yahtzee will solve, working our way to the top until we get to a Business Objective.

Note the problem at the top of this diagram finally becomes one that relates to money: The competition is still growing and we aren’t. And the business Objective can now be written to quantify the desire: 25% growth in markets other than 15-30 year olds.

Now that we have a business objective, we can define strategies. There may be 5 or even 100 business strategies and someone must select the ones to be implemented. In this case, 2 possible strategies include building a game for 7-13 year olds and advertising to the retirement community. Out of that, we can believe that Yahtzee is a valid product concept, as long as they develop it to target that 7-13 year old user group.

Finally, we can complete the rest of the ROM by crisply defining our product concept (Online Yahtzee), success metrics (7-13 year olds rate the game fun), and guiding principle (create a social environment). Then we can take on the fun task of defining features that fit within this definition.

If you follow this approach, you will have a constant guide in your Business Objectives to ensure that you are creating features that you need, but only features that you need, to achieve the business value of the project.