Elevator speech
The term is attributed to Philip B. Crosby, who described it in his book The Art of Getting Your Own Sweet Way (1981): a way of conveying ideas that produce action in the time of an elevator ride with the company's CEO.
In agile product management, the elevator speech is a common tool in inception sessions to pin down and communicate the product vision so that anyone, including people unfamiliar with the project, can understand it immediately.
What it is for in an agile context
- Align the team and stakeholders around a shared vision during the inception.
- Prepare the Product Owner to communicate the product's value to investors, customers, or executives.
- Validate that the vision is sufficiently clear and specific: if it doesn't fit in two minutes, it's probably not well defined.
How to build it
A common structured format, based on the Product Vision Box from the Agile inception deck:
For [target user or customer type]
who [need or problem they have]
the [product name]
is a [product category]
that [key benefit or reason to buy it]
unlike [current alternative or competition]
our product [key differentiator].
Example: "For development teams who need to manage their work visually without status meetings, TaskFlow is a project management tool that automatically updates task status in real time. Unlike Trello or Jira, it doesn't require anyone to update the board manually."
Best practices
- Always start with the user's problem or need, not with the product's features.
- Avoid technical language: it should be understandable to someone with no knowledge of the industry.
- End with a clear value proposition: what your solution does better or differently.
- Practice it out loud: what sounds good on paper often sounds forced when spoken.
Common mistake
Describing features instead of value. "An app with a kanban board with WIP limits and Slack integration" is not an elevator speech: it is a list of features. An effective pitch starts with the user's real problem and ends with the change the product brings about in their situation. Features are the means; value is the message.
Resources
🏦 Skill Agile InceptionState of the art and development guide · Skill Arena
References
- Crosby, Philip B. (1981). The Art of Getting Your Own Sweet Way. McGraw-Hill.
See also
Want to advance in agility? You can search for calls for courses and exams, or go at your own pace by becoming a member of the Agile Club. This membership includes exclusive resources, e-learning classrooms, and access to Skill Arena: a space to practice and measure your agile skills at your own pace.