Building a Better Product Owner

Strengthening the Product Owner Role in Scrum

Scrum Gathering Open Space Session, 4/16/2008

Facilitated by: Nick Xidis, se², nick.xidis@se2.com

Summary

As Scrum teams and their processes mature, it appears that the product owner is becoming a much more integral and interactive part of the team. From the our discussion, it appears that teams have a range of levels of interaction with the Product Owner. The level of interaction and involvement seems to grow as both the team and product owner mature in the agile process and their level of trust grows. As a community we have been very successful in building with agile teams, we need to do more to define the role, the breakdown and priority process, and train our Product Owners. This shift from focus inward on the agile team to outward to the interfaces with the team is an important shift as agile and Scrum become more widely accepted.

Session Notes

• New items from the gathering to seed the discussion

  • Product Owner is really “part of the team” (e.g., no longer a chicken, promoted to pig with feathers)

  • Product Owner may need to be more than one person

• The Product Owner needs to be committed resource to the team for:

  • Requirements/Story clarifications

  • User Acceptance Testing

• The Product Owner may be assigned tasks on the plan, especially related to the above types of activities.

   

• Scrum Master needs to be an active agent to make sure that the Product Owner has visibility to the progress of the team. While formal interactions need to be done on the Sprint boundaries, the Product Owner could be more effective if he's aware of some of the team's progress and struggles.

   

• Scrum Master needs to manage the interaction of the Product Owner with the team. Lower maturities may require a more formal and restrictive approach. As the relationship matures, the interaction can be expanded.

   

• It will be more effective if the Product Owner and Scrum Master spend some time negotiating their roles and the team's interactions.

   

• Product owner can more effectively interact with the team when they focus on product ownership not project ownership. This requires a mind shift on the part of the Product Owner to a more visionary role. This can be a difficult transition for some people and organizations.

   

• Maturity of the Product Owner – personal, professional and agile, determines how rich the relationship with the team can be.

   

• Business Owner and Technical Experts, etc... man need to team up to effectively fill the Product Owner role.

   

• It's tough for a Product Owner to do the type of breakdown that the team needs. For many in this role it is not a core skill set and they find it very difficult. Some team offer assistance as a service to the Product Owner as part of their backlog grooming activities.

   

• Product Owners tend to be stretched too thin. Some strategies that are being used are:

  • Proxy Product Owner

  • Chief Product Owner (Overall road map) Technical Product Owners (Detail or team level product owner)

  • Direct team interaction with end users with oversight by Product Owner

     

• One Product Owner is ideal but not always possible or practical

   

• Teams should consider providing assistance to Product Owner on how to breakdown business vision into stories that can be used in the backlog.

   

• Backlog item breakdown is an iterative exercise between the Product Owner and the Team

   

• “Take Prisoners!”, make sure that that your customers in involved.

   

• Product Owners need experience with Agile and the team to mature in their role

   

• We need to do more training on how to be a good Product Owner

  • More courses need to be offered

  • IT should consider funding training

     

• Management support for behavior changes in the Product Owner, and the training that support the change, are important to success.

   

• We need to define the Product Owner role (people, interaction, expectations, etc...) more clearly in as part of the project inception.