What's up everybody? Welcome back to my channel.
Joshua Partogi here. Today I am in Noosa, Queensland and today I'm gonna talk
about "Who should be your Product Owner?" Alright let's do this!
Before we talk about who should be your Product Owner, let's talk about some of
the misconceptions we often see in the market regarding the Product Owner role.
There is a common misconception in the market that the Product Owner is just
another name for a business analyst who writes the user stories for the
development team. A lot of companies think that the Product Owner is a
tactical role and only play at the Scrum team level. So that's why a lot of
companies assigns the Product Owner role to the business analysts. The Product
Owner is actually a strategic role. An awesome Product Owner spend 80% of his
or her time at the strategic level and looking at the opportunities he or she
can find in the market rather than just writing user stories for the development
team.
There is a common misconception in the market that the Product Owner role is
the same as the project manager role, that is to ensure that the product is
delivered on time, on scope and on budget. The Product Owner is actually an
entrepreneur who does a lot of experiments to test where value is
located in the market. And a lot of times doing this may not result in a product
that is delivered on time, on scope and on budget. Because the sole
responsibility of the Product Owner is to ensure that the product is valuable
and successful in the market. Because a product that is delivered on time, on
scope and on budget may not necessarily valuable and successful in the market. So
the Product Owner should have the entrepreneur and experimenter mindset
rather than a project manager mindset.
There is a common misconception that the Product Owner is not more than just a
proxy for all of the stakeholders, managing all of the requests from the
stakeholders. As the owner of the product at least 80% of the items in the product
backlog should be initiated by the Product Owner rather than just given by
the stakeholders. If 80% of the items in the product backlog are given by the
stakeholders, what we have is just a proxy rather than a Product Owner. There
is a common misconception that the Product Owner's job is to optimize the
number of features that the development team delivers. The Product Owner is not
the output maximizer. The Product Owner's job is to optimize the value out of the
product. The Product Owner mindset is outcome over output.
There is a misconception that the Product Owner needs to be the technical
solution expert, so that is why in some companies there is a role called the
Technical Product Owner who will define the technical solution and the product
architecture for the development team. The Product Owner does not need to be
technical but the Product Owner needs to have empathy regarding development team
challenges and also open for feedback from the development team. The technical
solution expert should be part of the development team rather than become the
Product Owner. Now as an example let's take a look at an imaginary company
named Acme Corporation. In this company there is Alice whose title is the Head
of Product. There is also Jake, Sarah and Jack who all has been given the title
Product Owner from the management. So you might think in this scenario that Jake,
Sarah and Jack are really Product Owners. But if in reality it's Alice who drives
the strategy, owns the overall product vision, accountable for the success and
the value of the product in the market, initiates 80% or more of the items in
the product backlog and pushes all of these product backlog items to Jake,
Sarah and Jack to be fine-tuned as a fine detail requirement for Alice, then
in this scenario the actual Product Owner is actually Alice even though her
title in the company is Head of Product and even though Jake, Sarah and Jack has
the title Product Owner they're not really the owner of the product because
they just receives requirements from Alice. So in this scenario I prefer to
call Jake, Sarah and Jack as product manager. Because the manager is below the
owner rather than the other way around. So from this scenario we can learn that
people with the title Product Owner may not necessarily the owner of the product
and on the other hand those that doesn't have the title Product
Owner may actually be the real product owner.
The Product Owner role is a very critical role and it's not a role that can be
underestimated. The product's success really depends on who's playing the
Product Owner role. So before you select someone to be the owner of the product
or the Product Owner, here are some tests that you can use to check whether
someone is the right fit to be the Product Owner. The first test is about
someone's authority over the product. As the owner of the product, the Product
Owner has full authority over the product that will improve the products
value in the market. Therefore everyone in the organization including the senior
management should trust and respect the Product Owner's decision over the product.
So before you assign someone to be the owner of the product, ask yourself
whether everyone in the organization, including the senior management, will be
able to trust and respect this person's decision over the product. If everyone
within the organization, including the senior management and those with highest
political power, cannot trust and respect the person's decision over the product
and will likely override this person's decision over the product most of the
time, we will not have a Product Owner we will only have a product proxy. The next
test is about someone skills and accountability. As the Product Owner
needs to be accountable for the value of the product and the success of the
product in the market, choose someone who is entrepreneurial, strategic and
visionary to be your Product Owner. The third test is about someone's
personality. The Product Owner needs to be
open-minded and be collaborative, especially with the development team. A
lot of Product Owners who have been given such a high authority become so
authoritative and not collaborative with the development team. It's very important
for the Product Owner to be collaborative and partner with the
development team so both can deliver high quality product and valuable
products to the market. Product Owners need to be open-minded because a lot of
times development team will ask the Product Owner to fix the technical debt
in the product first before moving on to developing new features. So that is all
from me today folks. I hope you found today's video helpful to help you
understand the role of Product Owner and to help you select who should be your
Product Owner in organization. If you found today's video
helpful don't forget to smash that like button. And I really appreciate it if you
support me by subscribing to this channel. See you until my next video! Bye!