What a Product Owner is Not

Do you have a hard time as a Product Owner?

Perhaps you use the wrong corner to play this role.

Congratulation! You got a new role… as Product Owner. Seeing others playing it, DOs and DON’Ts lists are clear in your mind. Ah! And moreover, you have the best INTENTIONS.

But life is… how it is, and impediments are popping up from anywhere. Customers, development team, and other sources could bring an unstoppable pallet of difficulties.

So, what do you do in case of impediments? Start to use more and more your past abilities, start to develop (because you had been a developer), write more comprehensives user stories, or even push the team.

Tired and frustrated, you realize that the progress is minimal, and you need a lifetime to arrive into the point you imagined to be when you said “yes” to the new role.

Familiar story? If this is happening to you, most probably you will not find time to read, so even this article most likely you will miss.

So, why is this happening? Most probably because you are playing this role from the wrong corner, and there is NONE to cover the Product Owner role.

After years playing this role and seeing others doing it, I tell you, you are not the only one making this mistake. But, once you realize that you are in offside, you have big chances to move fast forward.

So, let’s start with what a Product Owner (PO) is not.

1. a PO is not a developer (as roles)

Every line of code which you write in the early stage of your PO life is simply stealing time from what you have to do, as building up a vision for the product (for example).

2. a PO is not an analyst (as roles)

Every single over detailed analyze will lock you in the inner circle of your product. That means your product will not be visible at all, because there is none out there to talk about it.

3. a PO is not a scrum master (as roles)

A challenger and a neutral moderator at the same time? Hard to believe that you could be in the early stage as PO.

If you are still stubborn enough to do it, just have in mind that you give up the role of business driver’s advocate in the favour of “good atmosphere”, and only the technical drivers have a voice in the negotiation.

4. a PO is not a manager, in a Self-Organized Team (SOT).

Such a team has the driver in internal energy, like interest, motivation. By nature, a SOT will simply act against any single management intervention, protecting the independence and freedom. So, don’t even think about playing the manager role, from PO position, in a Self-Organized Team. You simply lose trust.

After so many “is not” what is actually a PO? Simply, AN ENTREPRENEUR!

His/her focus is on HAVING customers. Without customers, there is no product. Not like a sales force person, but like the owner of the business.

So, here are some pieces of advice to start such a role:

1- Be clear on what you sell -110%, 125%, even more, 200% should be clear to you what you sell before convincing any customer or the team or any stakeholder.

2- Be clear on the customer reasons for choosing your product - might be surprised finding here other things then what you thought before.

3 - Know your DIRECT competition - look to their offer, but more important find the weak points. Use these findings smartly. Why direct competition? Just to not lose the focus on N continents.

4 - Stay always in touch with the external context, with the trends and make them integrated part of your product. Focus not only to the technical trends (as artificial intelligence or voice recognition etc) also to the business trends in the domain you cover (as experiential selling propositions or subscription e-commerce, as examples of retail trends)

5 - DEFINE your Selling Proposition- Define what you sell, after having all the points above clarified.

Selling just features (as by the way many are doing) increases your direct competition and the funny thing is, for the customer, it will always be a feature to less.

So, you could sell experience or “free your time” package or a trendy solution or an excellent support or consultancy e.t.c.

Whatever you define:

- be sure that is needed by the customers

- or if not yet, promote it properly until the customers just give a try.

Refresh /constantly innovate the selling proposition up to a certain extent, to remain relevant. In some domains after few months, relevancy of a product is simply gone. Innovation, constant innovation, with every sprint, supports you in having a suitable product also for the near short future.

6- Bring marketing in your daily routine. Moreover, bring analyzing of the marketing data & results in your daily routine. Few are doing it.

I remember a funny thing. I’ve made one time a promotion imagining that I will engage further a specific age category. The results? I totally different group responded, in a considerable extent. So, overnight, I had a new audience. I remember that for 2 days, I studied what in the hell I had done and why the audience acted like that. I found the answer, and it was in the small details of the wording.

7- Make the team part of the product life. The team should know what to and why to follow. Having this transparency, move the team from a reactive style to a proactive manner.

8- Use your leadership skills every single time, inspire, be a role model, show the way out.

As a conclusion:

A Product Owner SECURES the outside & business context, as customers and stakeholders, by the right content, vision, and visibility.

A Powerful Team SECURES the inner & technical context as quality, commitments, smart solutions, bringing innovative things.

Successful products ASSURED to the best level of inner and outer contexts. If one is not functioning well, either the product is not visible/ not used, or the product reviews are wrong, so the product perception is not in line with the marketing message.

Such a role sounds very challenging, but it is doable. You need just to play it from the right corner of the field.