The Ostrich and the Octopus: A fable about backlog and product vision

I was in the office watching a conference, live from Berlin, when a speaker started talking about films. Astronauts, scientists, chefs, and examples like Netflix and Blockbuster suddenly took on new life as clear metaphors for what many digital product teams are missing.

It isn't talent. It isn't technology.

It's the ability to think about the future — and, above all, to fold that thinking into everyday work. Because if we stay locked into just the next sprint, we risk missing opportunities we can't yet even name.

When the backlog runs the product

Many of us spend whole weeks with our teams, heads buried in the backlog, executing: "burning down the backlog." Who hasn't?

Don't get me wrong. Meeting deadlines is essential, and the priorities are clear: structured planning, defined dates, accountability throughout the project. But there's an important distinction we don't always make: managing tasks is not the same as having vision.

Why product vision matters day to day

Many product teams work well day to day, with consistent rituals and deliveries. Even so, there's often no clear answer to where the product actually wants to go.

Caught up in short cycles and urgent tasks, they end up treating vision as something distant. The contrast between Netflix and Blockbuster shows that the difference wasn't technological. Netflix reimagined what the experience of watching films could be.

Three simple practices to bring vision into everyday work

The good news is that working on vision doesn't have to be a solemn exercise reserved for big moments. It can fit into one-hour sessions, within the team's normal rhythm.

A few practices I've seen work:

User Time Travel

During a meeting, the team imagines the user five years from now. How that person's life has changed. What role artificial intelligence, privacy, and automation play. What expectations they now have of the product. This exercise helps challenge current assumptions and see whether we're designing for a world that's already shifting.

Speculative Sprint 60

A mini vision sprint lasting a total of one hour: identify today's frustrations, imagine desirable futures, sketch quick concepts, and share them with the group. The goal isn't to walk away with a finished plan — it's to create a first image of the future that the team recognises as desirable and possible.

What if…? Storm

The team comes up with questions that start with "What if…?" What if the user didn't have to open the app. What if onboarding disappeared. What if most of the manual effort were automated. These questions open up alternatives that rarely surface in the middle of a backlog.

None of these practices require complex tools. Pen, paper, and a protected moment in the calendar can be enough to start a different conversation about the future of the product.

Vision as storytelling (and as business)

Vision works best when it's told as a story rather than as features. Like a concept car, it points to a direction more than a finished product. In digital product terms, it can be a simple prototype or storyboard — as long as it makes the future visible and relevant to the business too: what risk it helps reduce, what opportunities it opens, what relevance it adds in the market. It's in this bridge between imagination and pragmatism that vision stops being abstract and starts to win real support.

A simple invitation

The first step can be modest and still be transformative: set aside one hour a month for a vision exercise with the product team. Pick a concrete theme and ask what story we'd like to be telling about it a few years from now.

On the management side, the most powerful gesture may be to legitimise this space: to recognise that discussing the future is work, not a waste of time.

On the team side, the invitation is to lift your head from the backlog and ask questions about the future. Those closest to customers and data have an essential role in building this vision.

The Ostrich and the Octopus

On a stretch of sand by the sea lived an ostrich and an octopus who, together, were building something important.

The Ostrich was fast and tireless. With a list clipped to her beak, she ran, crossing off tasks with satisfaction.
"Backlog all caught up!" she'd say, as she buried her head in the sand to focus on the next item.

The Octopus stretched out his tentacles, felt the currents, and watched the horizon.
"Where are we actually going?" he'd ask.
"Not now," the Ostrich would reply. We've got so much to deliver.

Until the sea began to change and the old paths were submerged.
"We don't need to stop working," the octopus said calmly. We just need to lift our heads every once in a while.

Together, they drew an imperfect idea of the future in the sand. It wasn't a finished plan, nor a promise. It was just a direction.

The ostrich kept running — but now she knew where to.

And the octopus kept imagining — but now the ideas took shape in everyday work.

Moral of the story:

Getting tasks done keeps us busy.
Imagining the future gives the path meaning.
A product needs its feet firmly in the present… and its eyes on what doesn't yet exist.
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This article was originally published on Tek Notícias

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