From my product trainings and coachings I know there's a lot of uncertainty around the Product Owner role. It originates in the Scrum framework and is defined in the Scrum Guide. Many companies have adapted the role but often without creating the prerequisites necessary for a meaningful practice of product ownership.
This article collects a few characteristics that I consider important for a comprehensive exercise of the Product Owner role.
But first: what's the value in answering this question? Personally, I think the Product Owner role is the perfect tool for creating successful digital products — and many companies struggle with that, no matter if corporations, SMBs, or startups.
Here's a quick checklist with things I find crucial for the Product Owner role to be successful:
- ✅ I know what my product is and can describe it anytime.
- ✅ I know (or have crafted) the product vision and I'm communicating it actively.
- ✅ I know the value proposition of the product.
- ✅ I follow a product strategy, aligned with the vision, to maximise the value of the product — for the users and the business.
- ✅ I know my users (and customers), their needs and the context they are in, and I'm receiving regular feedback from them.
- ✅ I have an idea of the impact the product has on the user.
- ✅ I understand my organisation's goals and how the product is contributing to them.
- ✅ I have a holistic view on the organisational system surrounding the value chain of the product.
- ✅ I spend as much time as possible together / co-located with my product development team.
- ✅ My decisions are respected within the organisation. That being said, I might consult others before decision-makeing.
There is a lot more in the life of product people, and many books and articles have been written about this: building a great product is a team sport and should be facilitated by the whole product development team. Strong leadership skills and an entrepreneurial mindset matter. So do feedback cycles on various levels — outcome, user, team, upstream and delivery processes.
Nevertheless, to distinguish an agile cargo-cult setup from a genuine agile team, the above list should be a good enough litmus test. Product people hired as Product Owners who find themselves in a role of feature manager, project manager, requirements engineer, or Jira administrator usually won't make it beyond point 3 or 4.
I hope it can be useful for anyone to understand the meaning of this role in their organisation, or to evaluate the culture of a company during a job interview.
Note: This article was first published on LinkedIn.