Product Ownership

Agile Delaware January 2014

Don MacIntyre, CSC, CSPO, CSP, CSM, SPCDirector of Agile Development

Lockheed Martindon@scrumetc.com

Agile Product Ownership in a nutshell – Henrick Kniberg

First let’s watch this great video from Henrick Kniberg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=502ILHjX9EE

The Product Owner is the single individual who is responsible for drawing out the most valuable possible product by the desired date.

This is done by managing the flow of work into the team, selecting and refining items from the Product Backlog.

Scrum Role: Product Owner

http://agileatlas.org/atlas/scrum

The Product Owner maintains the Product Backlog and ensures that everyone knows what is on it and what the priorities are. The Product Owner may be supported by other individuals but must be a single person.

Scrum Role: Product Owner

Scrum Role: Product Owner

Certainly the Product Owner is not solely responsible for everything.

The whole Scrum Team is responsible for being as productive as possible, for improving their practices, for asking the right questions, for helping the Product Owner, and so on.

Scrum Role: Product Owner

The Development Team is responsible for determining how much work will be taken on in a Sprint, and for producing a usable Product Increment in every Sprint.

Nonetheless, the Product Owner, in Scrum, is in a unique position.

Scrum Role: Product Owner

The Product Owner is typically the individual closest to the "business side" of the project.

The Product Owner is typically charged by the organization to "get this product out", and is typically the person who is expected to do the best possible job of satisfying all the stakeholders.

Scrum Role: Product Owner

The Product Owner does this by managing the Product Backlog, and by ensuring that the Product Backlog, and progress against it, is kept visible.

The Product Owner, by choosing what the Development Team should do next and what to defer, makes the scope versus schedule decisions to lead to the best possible product.

Product Owner must haves• Requirements gathering• Release Planning• Sprint Planning• Demonstrations• Scrums• Customers• Stakeholders• And, most importantly, for Team

Vegas baby!Availability

Product Owner must haves

Authority• Legal

• Traditional

• Charismatic

Yes!

Product Owner must haves

Decisiveness• Willingness

• Ability to say NO

Let me get back to you on that…

Product Owner must haves

Ability to satisfy (and manage) Stakeholders

Consensus?

Product Owner must haves

Knowledge

They must have a clue about • Product / Domain• Agile / Scrum

Scrum?

Product Owner must haves

Business SenseThe ability to maximize value and consider scope verses scheduleThe understanding that they cannot have it all

ROI

Product Owner must haves

Communication They should provide feedback to the business and to the teamThe should communicate fairly and accuratelyThe should be transparent and visible

NiceWork!

Product Owner must haves

What else?

Discussion• Have you ever been a Product Owner?• What has been your experience with Product

Owners? • Are you experiencing any Product Ownership

challenges at the moment?• Have you ever worked with an awesome Product

Owner?• Should the agile community be doing more to

reach out to, and support, Product Owners?