Reflections on the Product Owner Role: Unraveling the Key to Successful Agile Product Management

Insights and Observations from Agile Coaches to Empower Product Owners for Excellence

A product owner needs the sponsorship from the management.

Reflection Along The Agile Journey

Several years ago, I had a deep talk with a senior project manager. And I said, “If a scrum master has never been a product owner, he might not know what kinds of assistance the role really needs”. I know the comment might be controversial because some people are excellent scrum masters and they don’t really go through the product owner roles.

Well, I have to explain why I have this idea. As I became the scrum master role, although I was familiar with what a product owner role should do, I didn’t experience the tough condition the role went through. For example, we always know the product owner should maximize the business value for each sprint. However, what if he cannot do because he failed to acquire the necessary resources from the management? This is a hard condition, right?

Therefore there is always an inner voice in my mind. One day I should be becoming a product owner and experience the forces the role tolerates. In this way, I could really understand how a scrum master should do to help a product owner guide a team.

Reflections on The Product Owner Role

In the last chapter of the book, it lists several questions for the readers to think about. And I’d like to share some of my ideas with you.

• What are the aspects of the role you are likely to find difficult?

In my opinion, I think there are 3 primary aspects the role should pick up. First up, the product owner needs to balance the expectations from different stakeholders, because he essentially has to make tough decisions to fit the goals of an organization, especially the stakeholders are competing for critical resources, no matter budget, manpowers, or time. For example, there was once a product owner, Julie, who always had to meet with the marketing director, the financial director, the operation manager, and the CEO, in order to obtain the consensus for the plan.

Secondly, the role should be a good storyteller. In order to guide a team, it is important for a product owner to profile the vision a team is going to craft, and indicate the pain points they have to resolve in order to generate business value in the long term.

Lastly, it is defining the product vision and the roadmap that matters for the role to empower the team. From my past experience, if you don’t show the team a clear roadmap to communicate the outcomes and the goals, the team would become passive to their project and consume a lot of your energy to make progress since you have to push them. Conversely, a clear goal and a roadmap would give the team a sense of direction, and the product owner could talk about the expected deliverables at corresponding stages with members.

• How can you acquire the necessary knowledge to be off to a good start?

Well, I’ve never been a product owner, so I cannot give you a clear path to follow, but I could provide you some tips for you to try and I bet these are beneficial for your exploration.

In the beginning, you could learn Agile and Scrum. Why I say this? Because you are impacting a team to deliver products in an iterative and incremental approach. If you have no idea about how contemporary agile methodologies work, that would be a minus. So try to read online materials or buy some online course to understand how to organize the events, such as Scrum, Kanban, user story writing, etc, as they are commonly used in software development environments. Understanding the principles, ceremonies, and roles within Agile will help you align your product ownership practices with industry standards.

• Who can help you develop and grow as a product owner?

I think it important to find a mentor to help you grow if you choose to become a product owner. So I strongly suggest you seek guidance and mentorship from experienced product owners within your organization or through networking events. They can provide valuable insights, share real-world experiences, and offer practical advice on how to navigate challenges.

Besides that, try to work closely with your development team members. They have a wealth of technical knowledge and can offer valuable feedback on the feasibility of product ideas and features. Building strong relationships with the team fosters collaboration and better outcomes.

As I said in the very beginning, a product owner needs sponsorship from the management. You need to regularly engage with stakeholders and customers to understand their needs and pain points. This direct feedback will help you prioritize features and make informed product decisions.

• How is a product owner role likely to impact an organization?

A product owner is a critical role in defining the product vision and strategy that fits the development goals of an organization. This ensures that everyone is aligned with the product’s direction and goals. For example, in my last company that was developing NFT applications, the product owner proposed an idea to build a NFT platform to help people craft identity symbols in virtual world. And that totally fits the goals of the organization.

Additionally, product owners are responsible for prioritizing features and tasks based on business value and customer impact. This helps the organization focus on building the most important and impactful features, leading to efficient use of resources and quicker time-to-market.

The most important thing is that the product owner should be customer-centric. In order to drive the business, he has to know the target audiences, customer needs, business goals, features, and the product vision. By incorporating this customer-centric approach, the organization can build products that better meet customer expectations and lead to higher customer satisfaction.

• What are the things that matter most for successful product owners?

I have thought a lot regarding to the successful product owners I had collaborated with. The first thing they have is empathy. As a product owner, you should have the characteristics to understand what your customers are suffering from or what your teams are struggling for. It would become a strong soft skill to help you explore their needs and make corresponding adaptations.

On the other hand, the product owner should have a sharp, political sense to know how the organization works, because in many times the role needs to balance the forces from different stakeholders and acquire critical resources to help the team achieve the final goals. From my past experience, a product owner is able to know the power structure of a business, and try to dig out their realistic needs as for the business. So this would assist them define a clear objective to follow. And the team is asl well empowered to achieve the goals.

Furthermore, it is communication that matters to become a successful product owner. When he is going to align the members with consistent deliverables, he has to tell the team a good story to emphasize the importance of delivering key results and what to do next.

• How can you help product owners do a great job?

As a scrum master, I would help the product owner collaborate effectively with stakeholders. Facilitate meetings, such as sprint reviews and backlog refinements, where the product owner can gather feedback and insights from stakeholders. For example, as I was working in the ex-company, I would help the product owner refine backlogs to ensure when the engineers are selecting the backlogs, they could reflect the latest customer needs.

Furthermore, I would identify and remove impediments that may hinder the product owner’s progress or decision-making. This could involve addressing resource constraints, communication issues, or any other challenges they face. I remembered when we were dedicated in the grid-trading project, I noticed that one of the features required an AI algorithm to auto-generate parameters for users to start trading, which was almost impossible because none of us had a finance background and it was quite complex to validate feasibility. To help the team achieve minimum viable product, I suggested them apply user-defined parameters on our operating platform, and change them by weekly referring to similar apps. As a result, we successfully released the product within schedule.

Finally, I would assist the product owner in refining the product backlog. Facilitate backlog refinement sessions with the development team to ensure that user stories are well understood, estimated, and ready for implementation.

• How can the company sustain the effective application of the product owner role?

Most companies don’t know the importance of a product owner. From my perspective, I would suggest them conduct regular retrospectives or feedback sessions with product owners to identify areas for improvement and celebrate successes. Create a safe environment for open and honest discussions.

Also, providing mentoring and coaching support to new or less experienced product owners would be a big plus for them to survive within the transformation process. Similar to the idea of pair programming, pairing them with seasoned product owners or agile coaches who can offer guidance and share insights would assist them grow along the journey.

Coach’s Murmur

I think one day I would become a product owner, because that is a must journey to become a self-employed agile coach. But I haven’t had sufficient experience of product development. In Taiwan, there are not so many companies focusing on the role. Usually we call this role the product manager, which is very different from what we say the product owner.

The former essentially has no authority to decide the direction of a product while the latter does. If you read here, never forget to share your ideas about the product owner role below.

Let Me Help you

Now I provide free, 1–1 online consulting service. If you have any agile related problems or project management issues, please reserve a web call with me. I would answer your questions as possible as I could.

👉 Book now: https://calendly.com/uragilecoach/consulting
⚠️ Remember to send me a message through one of social platforms (LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, Reddit) within 1 hour, otherwise the reservation might be canceled.
🎁 Anyone who reserves for the web call would be rewarded with a secret gift that helps you grow on project management skills.

If you acknowledge the value I share with you, do as below:
1. 👏 the article
2. subscribe me for latest contents
3. follow me on other platforms for further information
- IG: @ur_agile_coach
- Podcast: Agile Rocket
- Youtube: Your Agile Coach
- LinkedIn: Tsung-Hsiang Wu
- Twitter: @ur_agile_coach