58 Product Owner Theses – Business 2 Community

TL;DR: The Scrum Product Proprietor in 58 Theses

The next 58 Product Proprietor theses describe the PO position from a holistic product creation perspective.

They cowl the idea of the Product Proprietor position, product discovery, methods to cope with exterior and inner stakeholders, product portfolio and product roadmap planning, and the Product Backlog refinement. The Product Proprietor theses additionally handle the Product Proprietor’s half in Scrum occasions from Dash Planning to Dash Assessment to Dash Retrospective, and the Each day Scrum.

The Product Proprietor Theses

A Product Proprietor is an innovator at coronary heart and thus a worth creator for patrons and organizations if given an opportunity to work in an agile method. The Product Proprietor can be probably the most susceptible Scrum position. Flip them right into a [fill-in a ticket-system of your choice] monkey or deprive them of the power to say ‘no’—as in being the guardian of the Product Backlog—, and the Product Proprietor shortly turns into the Achilles heel of any agile group.

The Product Proprietor position will depend on the scale of a company, the trade it’s working in, its tradition, and the lifecycle stage of that group’s product(s). Lastly, there’s an overlap with the product supervisor position. (Spoiler alert: they aren’t similar.)

The next Product Proprietor theses try to offer an outline of a profitable Product Proprietor’s obligations and competencies.

Function of the Product Proprietor

This class of the Product Proprietor theses addresses the meta-level of the Product Proprietor position and the Scrum course of:

1. The Product Proprietor embraces, shares, and communicates the product imaginative and prescient, representing the shopper voice and inner stakeholders.
2. Course of-wise, the Product Proprietor is accountable for successfully managing the Product Backlog, thus “proudly owning” the product on behalf of the group.
3. The Product Proprietor is accountable for maximizing the worth— ensuing from the Scrum Crew’s work—that the product is offering to clients and the group.
4. To realize this, the Product Proprietor is empowered to make all crucial product-related selections on behalf of the group.
5. If “Product House owners” aren’t empowered to take action, they’re no Product Proprietor per se, and the group just isn’t training Scrum.
6. The Product Proprietor thus acts as the only consultant of all stakeholders—inner and exterior—towards the Builders.
7. The Product Proprietor owns the “why” and influences the “what” and “who,” however by no means the “how.” Subsequently, any product progress is all the time a collaborative effort of the Scrum Crew.
8. The Product Proprietor must work carefully with the Scrum Crew members, notably with the Scrum Grasp. These two are pure allies.
9. The Product Proprietor shall actively take part in Scrum occasions. Moreover, there’s the Product Backlog refinement as a steady course of.
10. Subsequently, the Product Proprietor must be with the remainder of the Scrum Crew—co-located or distributed—to keep away from delays, communication errors, and different types of waste.
11. Opposite to in style notion, the Product Proprietor is neither a consumer story writer nor a necessities engineer, however a communicator, a storyteller, and facilitator amongst all stakeholders.

Product Discovery and Exterior Stakeholders

This class of the Product Proprietor theses is branching out into the areas of product discovery and product administration:

1. The Product Proprietor has a holistic understanding of issues and alternatives in a market, the product itself, the group and its technique, and its varied stakeholders.
2. The primary accountability of the Product Proprietor is driving worth for patrons and the group whereas mitigating danger on the identical time.
3. The Product Proprietor lives as much as these obligations by embracing a steady product discovery course of designed round studying and experimentation.
4. On this course of, the Scrum Crew validates hypotheses constantly by experiments.
5. Appropriate frameworks and practices for this sort of product discovery course of are, for instance, Lean Startup, Lean UX, Design Pondering, Design Sprints, or the Enterprise Mannequin Canvas. Additionally, consumer story mapping, steady consumer testing, fast prototyping, or A/B testing have confirmed useful.
6. The Product Proprietor is able to considering in programs to cope with complexity and uncertainty.

Product Proprietor Theses: Inside Stakeholder Administration

This class offers with particular points of relationships of Product House owners with inner stakeholders:

1. The Product Proprietor wants to realize the belief and mandate of inner stakeholders.
2. The Product Proprietor can clarify to any stakeholders how their necessities match into the plan of methods to obtain the product imaginative and prescient.
3. Common suggestions from inner stakeholders is essential to the Product Proprietor’s profitable work, specifically offering enter to the hypotheses funnel to run experiments.
4. Shut cooperation with buyer care and gross sales has confirmed to be notably related for product success.
5. The Product Proprietor needs to be empowered to say “no” to requests irrespective of how influential the stakeholder is.
6. Communication with stakeholders must be clear and common to encourage their engagement with the Scrum Crew.
7. The Scrum Grasp proves to be an excellent ally within the pursuit of stakeholder engagement.
8. Good alternatives to have interaction stakeholders are Scrum occasions just like the Dash Assessment, workshops equivalent to consumer story mappings, or coaching group members of stakeholders to higher talk with the Scrum Crew typically.
9. Stakeholders make glorious members of the shopper growth or consumer analysis group.

Product Portfolio, Product Objective, and Roadmap Planning

This class covers one of the vital controversially mentioned matters: methods to construct product roadmaps that work for a Scrum Crew?

1. Product definition: “A product is a car to ship worth. It has a transparent boundary, recognized stakeholders, well-defined customers, or clients. A product might be a service, a bodily product, or one thing extra summary.” (Supply: Scrum Guide 2020.)
2. Product Objective definition: “The Product Objective describes a future state of the product which may function a goal for the Scrum Crew to plan in opposition to. [The Scrum Team] is a cohesive unit of execs centered on one goal at a time, the Product Objective.” (Supply: Scrum Guide 2020.)
3. The position requires that Product House owners act like product managers.
4. The Product Proprietor is conversant in the six ranges of agile planning: product imaginative and prescient, product technique, product roadmap, launch planning, Dash Planning, and Each day Scrum.
5. Appearing like a product supervisor contains engaged on the product imaginative and prescient, technique and market analysis, enterprise fashions, lifecycle administration, and product portfolio and roadmap planning. (See additionally Roman Pichler’s “The Scrum Product Owner Role on One Page.”)
6. Usually, portfolio planning in bigger organizations with a number of merchandise requires every Product Proprietor to align with different Product House owners to synchronize growth efforts.
7. Whereas the product roadmap addresses strategic points of product planning, the Product Backlog addresses tactical and technical growth points.
8. Roadmap planning is—like Product Backlog refinement—a steady effort, simply at an prolonged cadence.
9. An agile product roadmap is a high-level plan that describes how the product imaginative and prescient is more likely to be completed, facilitating experimentation and studying on the identical time.
10. Agile roadmaps are based mostly on goals and are often theme- or goal-oriented.
11. Nonetheless, an agile roadmap just isn’t a mere listing of prioritized options with a set delivery date for months to return. (See additionally: “Product Roadmap First Principles.”)
12. Product House owners talk the “massive product photos,” for instance, by using consumer story mapping strategies. (See additionally Jeff Patton’s “User Story mapping.”)
13. Having a committee of stakeholders deciding on product discovery and portfolio administration is probably the most vital motive for agile product supply initiatives’ failure.

Product Proprietor Theses: Product Backlog, Refinement, Work Gadgets, Forecasts, and Estimations

This class covers the Product Proprietor’s house turf: the Product Backlog, its refinement, and consumer story work merchandise creation:

1. The Product Proprietor just isn’t the first writer of the Product Backlog, churning out work objects on behalf of stakeholders. (Ticket software monkey syndrome.)
2. All consumer tales are work objects, however not all work objects are consumer tales.
3. Creating consumer tales doesn’t equal breaking down requirement paperwork from stakeholders into smaller chunks.
4. Writing consumer tales is a collaborative effort with the entire Scrum Crew to create a shared understanding of what shall be constructed for what motive for whom.
5. Therefore, a consumer story is a token for dialogue, which is why refining the Product Backlog might take as much as 10% of the Scrum Crew’s availability throughout the Dash.
6. Product backlog refinement is a steady course of and must be synchronized with the product discovery course of.
7. Creating an actionable Product Backlog requires the Scrum Crew to work collaboratively on Product Backlog objects for 2 to 3 Sprints in parallel.
8. The Scrum Crew must agree on what requirements work objects have to match earlier than the Builders can select them as work objects in a Dash.
9. Probably the most essential goal of the estimation poker is data switch and supporting the creation of a shared understanding amongst all members of the Scrum Crew on what must be constructed.
10. Estimations additionally permit forecasting a window of availability for work objects.
11. Estimations are a vital a part of the danger mitigation technique of the Scrum Crew.
12. Product House owners ought to be conversant in Ron Jeffries’ Three-Cs—Card, Conversation, Confirmation and Bill Wake’s INVEST principle.

Dash Planning, Dash, Dash Assessment, and Retrospective

The Product Proprietor theses’ sixth class addresses Scrum occasions from Dash Planning to the Dash Retrospective and a PO’s obligations throughout the Dash:

1. The Product Proprietor sketches the upcoming Dash’s potential scope by figuring out probably the most precious Product Backlog objects.
2. The Product Proprietor defines the enterprise goal the upcoming Dash shall accomplish.
3. The Scrum Crew creates the Dash Objective throughout Dash Planning.
4. The Product Proprietor understands that subsequent to consumer tales, technical or refactoring duties, bugs, and analysis must be addressed in every Dash.
5. The Product Proprietor is obtainable on quick discover to make clear questions of the Builders throughout the Dash.
6. The Scrum Crew decides on the discharge of a Product Increment.
7. The Product Proprietor hosts the Dash Assessment to “examine the end result of the Dash and decide future variations” of the Product Backlog.
8. The Product Proprietor embraces the Dash Assessment as a significant inspection and adaption suggestions loop with the Scrum Crew, exterior and inner stakeholders.

Conclusion: Product Proprietor Theses

Scrum has all the time been a realistic enterprise, and to achieve this mindset, Product House owners have to have a ardour for getting their palms soiled. Whereas the fundamental guidelines are trivial, getting a gaggle of people with completely different backgrounds, ranges of engagement, and private agendas, to constantly ship worth by creating an amazing product is difficult. The bigger the group is, the extra administration stage there are, the extra seemingly failure in considered one of its many kinds is lurking across the nook.

Which related Product Proprietor theses are lacking to explain the position in a greater means? Please share your ideas with us within the feedback.