Do You Want to be a Product Owner? You Better Know What Awaits!

Understand what is not said about being a Product Owner.

Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash

It was 2012 when I started my journey as a Product Owner. I wish I knew what a Product Owner meant; my life would have been easier. I could have avoided many problems. I experienced many failures, for example:

• Feature factory: delivering a bit of everything at the end of the Sprint, but nothing meaningful.
• Misunderstanding of value: pleasing stakeholders or increasing velocity, which has nothing to do with value.
• Focusing on solutions: by not understanding the problems, we ended up building products nobody wanted.
• Lack of focus: by saying yes to many wishes, we have no space to focus on what matters.

Are you sure you want to be a Product Owner?

If you want to be a Product Owner, you should understand what waits for you. Let’s say that being a Product Owner is never dull. There’s always something going on.

To thrive as a Product Owner, you should have some specific traits. Let’s evaluate them. How would you answer the following question?

• Do you enjoy talking to many people every day?