Why is the life of an Product Owner something, you can’t explain at a cocktail Party? And if you do so, why is nobody admiring you? Simply because you have to say no. Most of the time. After this article series you may feel like the whale in the hitchhiker’s guide. Just replace “whale” with Product Owner.
“I wonder if it will be friends with me!”—The whale’s attitude to the fast approaching ground
https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Magrathean_sperm_whale
The whole journey starts with the definition of this role in the Scrum Guide. Therefore let’s read the common definition and after that, I will dive deeper into the secrets of Product Ownership.
Product Owner
The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Scrum Team. How this is done may vary widely across organizations, Scrum Teams, and individuals.
The Product Owner is also accountable for effective Product Backlog management, which includes:
– Developing and explicitly communicating the Product Goal;
– Creating and clearly communicating Product Backlog items;
– Ordering Product Backlog items; and,
– Ensuring that the Product Backlog is transparent, visible and understood.
The Product Owner may do the above work or may delegate the responsibility to others. Regardless, the Product Owner remains accountable.
For Product Owners to succeed, the entire organization must respect their decisions. These decisions are visible in the content and ordering of the Product Backlog, and through the inspectable Increment at the Sprint Review.
The Product Owner is one person, not a committee. The Product Owner may represent the needs of many stakeholders in the Product Backlog. Those wanting to change the Product Backlog can do so by trying to convince the Product Owner.
https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html#product-owner
The day-to-day question is now how to translate this role definition into reality.
Disclaimer
This article series describes the Product Ownership as a whole. And it is not uncommon in businesses these days, to share the PO responsibilities between disciplines. For example a Product Manager and a Product Owner working closely together and splitting the “outbound view” and the “inbound view”. Another model is to share the budget and revenue responsibilities with general management. Or in scaled environments, working with PO’s on team level and a PO on system level. A lot of scenarios may work depending on the context and the people filling the role.
But the scrum guide is clear on the accountability – where according work may be distributed. All of the above models have caveats and may lead to conflicts and/or misalignments.
Regardless if you are a PO beaten up for everything or just a part of the cake, you may find some perspectives and practices in this article series which may help you a little bit.
Product
Product Owner starts with the word “Product”. So we can not emphasize enough this part of the job.
Sorry to quote a German definition here without yet any translation. This will follow soon.
Aus der Perspektive des Nachfragers stellt ein Produkt ein Mittel zur Bedürfnisbefriedigung und somit auch zur Nutzengewinnung dar. In Anlehnung an Philip Kotler (1972) unterscheidet man hierauf aufbauend drei unterschiedliche Produktbegriffe:
– substanzieller Produktbegriff: das Kernprodukt als ein Bündel physisch-technischer Eigenschaften mit dem Ziel der Befriedigung funktionaler Kundenbedürfnisse durch die physischen Merkmale des Produkts.
– erweiterter Produktbegriff: das Produkt wird als ein Leistungspaket gesehen, bestehend aus physischen Produkten und/oder immateriellen Dienstleistungen, mithilfe derer die umfassende Befriedigung funktionaler Kundenbedürfnisse erresicht werden soll.
– generischer Produktbegriff: dieser Begriff umfasst alle materiellen und immateriellen Facetten, aus welchen Kundennutzen resultieren kann; hierbei werden neben dem funktionalen Nutzen auch andere Nutzenkategorien berücksichtigt (z. B. emotionaler oder sozialer Nutzen).
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Produkt_(Wirtschaft)#Marketing_und_Vertrieb
Ownership
Owner means: you are empowered to start or even stop the product. You are making (or delegating but staying accountable for) all decisions within the product lifecycle.
A Product Owner is defining WHAT is going to be implemented, changed or deleted within a product.
And you have the ultimate empowerment to say no. You have to use this unlimited power to keep the ship on its route against all head- and tailwinds of stakeholders. The bigger the context is, the more stakeholders you have, the more often you have to say no.
And you would do a bad job for the success of your product if your decisions would’t be aligned with all your stakeholders. This is where the challenge starts: saying often no but not losing people. Means, you have to talk. You have to motivate, coach, convince, defend, consult, explain, …
You have to tell the story of your product.
