A holistic product owner model
“A product owner should only concern himself with the what and stay far away from the technology, the how.” That is what I heard this week. To me, this is a symptom of a compartmentalized mental model of the role of the product owner. Everyone can have their own Agile way of working but I like to use a more holistic view, a view in which the product owner is not just playing a role in the development team but is also leading. I always loved the term “owner” because that is what is required to build great products: ownership. But to me, the role of the product owner is also a new way to show up as a leader. A big part of leadership is bringing things together, decompartmentalizing if you will. I understand the focus on the what for the product owner, but a product owner as a leader brings together the why, what and how.
Separating the how from the what is a good principle. If the how is up to the development team, you put the authority where it belongs: as far down as possible with the people who have the required knowledge and expertise. It gives autonomy and ownership to the development team. That is empowering. The product owner talks to the stakeholders, who know the why, and turns that into user stories, the what. But all these things need to come together. That, in my humble opinion, is the role of the product owner.
Chances are you have heard of the Golden Circle of Simon Sinek in which he connects the what, how, and why in a concentric circle model.
I think for the role of the product owner, it is good to pull this model apart a little and turn it into three overlapping circles:
One circle is the why which comes from the stakeholders, business owners, and users. The what is the area of the design team. They turn the user needs into features, into a product. The development team focusses on the how: how to build the product. So far nothing new. The interesting things as always happen where things meet, in the overlap. Between the stakeholders and the designers, information is transferred by interviews, user research, and data. The design’s feasibility is discussed between en designers and the developers in refinements. And finally, the developers demo the product to the stakeholders in a demo and release and roll-out the solution. The product owner is the one that ties this all together. Product owners help the stakeholders with the strategy, the why, the designers and developers with coming up with solutions that solve the user needs in a way that fits the tech stack.
This is my model of the product owner role. It’s holistic. It’s about leadership. The product vision should unite why, how, and what. The user stories on the backlog are the breakdown of the product vision. The priorities are a balance between business needs and technical context.
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