How to leave a company the right way as a Product Owner or Product Manager?

It’s likely to happen a few times throughout your career; You are leaving a company. This was also the case for Laura. Some time ago, she had read a few of our articles about starting as a Product Owner. Now, some time later, she is about to leave her Product Owner position in order to move on to another job. So, Laura reached out to me via LinkedIn because she was wondering how to stop being a Product Owner, instead of starting it. So first of all, and before we dive into the contents, thank you Laura for asking this question! We decided to have a virtual coffee and share our ideas and experiences. This article captures our ideas and experiences, for you to enjoy, learn from, and perhaps apply in case you decide to leave your company.

Leaving a company on a positive note

Like Laura did, many of us reach a point in our careers where we know it’s time to move on. Whether it is to pursue a new career opportunity, to improve your salary, or to leave a dissatisfying position, it’s important to quit your job on a positive note. Although you may be excited about this new opportunity, and your head may wander off to this new place every now and then, it’s important to wrap it up in a good way. Especially in important positions like being a Product Owner.

Finalizing your relationships and collaboration with the stakeholders, customers, users, your Scrum Team and other co-workers can solidify people’s positive perceptions about your professionalism. It might help you to get good references for the future. Avoiding pitfalls when leaving a company can ensure that you don’t damage these relationships, or that you make any errors with your post-employment compensation or benefits.

If you plan ahead, and if you contribute to a smooth transition to your successor, you will be able to leave on good terms and in the company’s good graces. Leaving in a good way has always been the best way to move on from a job. Especially since you may end up working with some of your former colleagues or previous bosses at other jobs in the future.

So, you want to make sure that you leave your Scrum Team, product and company in such a way, that they can continue to be successful. But how to do that? What are some do’s and don’ts? How do you setup a good exit-strategy? What are the things you need to take care of in your last month(s)? That’s what we’ll be exploring in this blogpost.

Ten things to take care of when a Product Owner leaves the company

The Product Owner accountability in the Scrum Team is likely to be taken over by a successor. So, as a Product Owner, you’ll want to make sure to set them up for success. In order to do so, it will be highly appreciated if you offer them a good start, by making sure that the core accountabilities and responsibilities of Product Ownership are taken care of. This means you should create a plan for yourself in order to transfer your accountabilities to your successor effectively.

The intention of this blogpost is not to provide an extensive list of things to do. It’s neither intended as a simple checklist. It’s merely a perspective on some important points of attention for Product Owners that are leaving a company, to set your successor up for success. Are you ready for it? Here we go!

1. Develop, document and communicate the product vision and product strategy in a clear and concise way. Develop and document various (customer, user, or business) stories, for example by using the 3x3 Story Telling Framework. Make sure to clearly state and document the top-5 customer or user problems that you would have solved, if you would have stayed.
2. Develop, document and communicate the active Product Goal, and your thoughts about goals and objectives to be achieved for the near future. Clearly stating the goals to be achieved is much more powerful than handing over a list of features to build. So, ensure that your successor can understand the direction you were considering for the product.
3. In line with the second point; develop, document and communicate the (high-level) product roadmap for the next 6–12 months. Most important to focus on is that the goals or objectives are clear in this roadmap. In addition, it could be very useful to list some (3–5) key features that would contribute to each goal, and list the key metrics to be tracked for each goal.
4. Ensure that the Scrum Team(s) and stakeholders have a clear definition of value for the upcoming months, in line with the product vision, strategy and goals or objectives. Your Scrum Team and successor should be able to understand and explain what value was added during a Sprint, and what value is likely to be delivered in upcoming Sprints. Since the core of Product Ownership is to maximize value, it will be very helpful if you develop and document your perspective on how to express value in the upcoming 3–6 months.
5. Ensure that the Product Backlog is transparent, visible, ordered and understood by the Scrum Team, some (1–5) key stakeholders, and your successor Product Owner. Make sure the Product Backlog isn’t overly long, as it won’t help your successor to leave behind a Product Backlog containing more than 100 Product Backlog Items.
6. Document your top-5 customer, top-5 market, top-5 competitor, and top-5 technology insights. Develop and document these trends and patterns you spotted in a simple, lightweight, and easy-to-understand overview. Alternatively, document the core principles or values you have used in your decision making. Having a few pointers about decisions that were made, why they were made, how they were made, and who were involved might prove to be of high value for your successor. It doesn’t have to be an extensive list of all decisions ever made! However, having some guidelines that you have used along the way, might be helpful.
7. Create, update, document, and communicate your stakeholder map and stakeholder management strategy. Offer your successor an easy start by sharing your understanding of the stakeholder field, and how you have worked with them in the (recent) past. In addition, you could offer your perspective on how to collaborate with some of the difficult stakeholders. What works well? What doesn’t? Consider explaining some background information about whom to involve in what decisions for example. The book Master the Art of No offers you the tools and knowledge you’ll need to set this up effectively.
8. Support the Scrum Team, your successor, and the stakeholders by spending some time on building bridges with other people. A knowledge or experience gap in the team or amongst the stakeholders might reveal itself when you leave the company. So, make sure that the Scrum Team and your successor get well-connected to important experts and knowledgable people in the company. If you have worked closely with certain users, partners, vendors, or customers, then help your team to get well-connected with them so that good relationships stay intact. Invite some stakeholders, customers, users, or experts during refinement meetings. Allow the Scrum Team and other people to refine the work their own way. Don’t interfere too much. Don’t give answers, but point people in the right direction where to look.
9. Ensure that you leave behind an up-to-date product dashboard or product wall that contains all relevant product, market, customer, and stakeholder information. Make sure this information is easy to find, access, use in practice, and understand. Store it in one place like a Miro or Mural board, or a wall in the office building with paper and post-its. Offer access to your successsor, Scrum Team and key stakeholders. Gathering critical information on a product wall is a powerful technique for steering the product effectively (by the way; this doesn’t just apply when leaving a company, it’s a very valuable technique at any time).
10. Setup a last good Retrospective with some drinks, together with your Scrum Master/Agile Coach and the Scrum Team. Exchange some views on how the team and yourself could improve. Exchange perspectives about opportunities that could be seized. Inspire the Scrum Team one last time with your vision, how great the product could become, and what amazing opportunities the team has ahead of them.

So, here you go. Ten important things to consider, do, document, prepare, and/or communicate when you’re transferring your Product Owner accountability to someone else. I hope this was useful to you.

If you want to learn more about this topic or anything else Product Management related, then please let us know! You can email us via info@thevaluemaximizers.com or reach out via LinkedIn. I would be happy to have a (virtual) cup of coffee and talk about how to improve product management in your company.

Go experience the Stances of the Product Owner!

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