Seven Mistakes You'll Definitely Make as a Product Owner
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- Опубліковано 2 сер 2024
- The product owner role is a tough gig. Stakeholders, customers, users, leaders, and teams all compete for your time and attention. With so much to juggle, it's no wonder that product owners sometimes drop the ball.
Mike Cohn, author of three best-selling agile and Scrum books, introduces 7 traps product owners fall into, and explains how you and your team can escape them.
0:00 Why being a product owner is so hard
0:43 The promise all product owners will break at some point
1:29 One easy way product owners can minimize sprint interruptions
1:42 The secret to empowering Scrum Masters to help you be a better product owner
1:50 How I keep ideas top of mind, without disrupting the team
2:11 Why product owners need to participate in Scrum meetings
2:29 What product owners do to help good agile teams become great
2:59 One bad habit product owners need to break now
3:15 The difference between What and How
3:37 The best question you can ask to avoid telling the team how to build
3:50 The hidden no in every product owner yes
4:32 The importance of delaying commitment
4:38 The equal importance of deciding far enough in advance
4:57 How good product owners stop chasing what's important right now
5:19 What happens when a product owner lacks authority
5:45 How to talk about responsibility
6:20 Product Owner Mistake #7: Not Listening
6:43 The best way to make good products, great products
Let's keep the conversation going. What other common product owner mistakes have you made? What's the worst mistake you've seen a product owner make? Let us know in the comments.
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Great one Mike..I have seen all of these in my team..One more PO does is directly reaching out to his kind of favorite team member with an adhoc task in the middle of the sprint..
Thanks. Yes, it's frustrating when a PO goes directly to a specific deliver to slip something into the sprint.
Loved it, obviously. Thank you Mike.
Thanks, I appreciate it.
Related to #3, I'd add another common mistake: "Tell the team What instead of telling Why"
True!
Product owners being heavily involved with the Dev team while they are doing their builds
Great addition to the list. Thanks.
I've been a PO for 5 months now, and my impression so far is that I have tons of responsibility and barely any power or ressources to accomplish anything or make things move forward. Plus I have nothing to do the whole day. It's all in the agile team's hands, and everything is decided by the PM beforehand. I see no value in my position, and I don't see myself doing this for much longer. Perfect definition of a bullshit job that pays well.
It sounds like you've been asked to be a product owner in a non-agile organization. I don't know if PM is product manager or project manager, but ideally those roles would not be interfering with your work. A PO with nothing to do all day is shocking--in a truly agile organization, the product owner is one of the busiest people. I'm sorry you're in this situation.
You need to be assertive and push back on your PM. Tell them what your role should be and how you’re not able to do it and want to take on the responsibility.
Let me guess, you work for a SAFe organization?
@@youngloenoe Goog assumption ;)
In connection with the fourth point, I often find that with an originally smaller task or user story, the original scope keeps getting bigger, which is why we can't keep the original time box. it could be a previously unknown difficulty, or it could simply be that we keep adding more elements (subtasks) to the story as we work. in this case, can you say no? this is not part of the story and at a refinement meeting we will include it in another story, for example in a next sprint? how can you limit how big a story can grow?
Time estimates tend to be lognormally distributed. So with a large enough set of stories, some will be bigger than expected.
It’s making the decision if what the team thinks is best is worth the time in the short term and long term for the good of the product vs what you commit to stakeholders and market expectations.
I have more than 12 years of experience in data engineering, data science, and architecture, with significant expertise in the payment domain. I am currently working in a dual capacity as a product owner. I am contemplating a transition to a full-time product owner role in my career, leveraging my technical skills and domain knowledge. Would this be a wise decision, or should I also consider exploring opportunities in a Business Analyst role?
I would think any company in that domain (and adjacent to it) would value you as a product owner. You may need to start into the role as a business analyst. But in the right organization, I think you'd quickly progress to PO.
Here's a question I typically ask highly technical people when they want to move out of the purely tech roles: What type of books have you read in the past year? If you're still reading hardcore tech books, that is probably where your heart still is. If you're starting to look beyond those books for work reading (and enjoyment) that's a good sign you're ready for a switch.
Good luck with whatever you choose.
@@MountainGoatSoftware I'm amazed by the quick response. Thanks.
Although I'm a hardcore techie, I'm developing an interest in the domain and aiming to transition into more techno-functional roles. I believe that becoming a product owner is the best option for me. (Correct me If I'm wrong here)
Even though my current role as a partial product owner has been only for a few months so far, I am considering it as a step towards my long-term career goals.
@@raghav36582 You’ve dipped in your toes into the PO role and enjoy it. I think you’ll love and should pursue it, especially if you change roles within your current organization. (My daughter, a certified accountant) has expressed interest in becoming a BA then PO and I’m telling her the same thing-it can be a great career. Go for it.
I don’t know you but I would recommend towards product owner if you’re a person who likes to be responsible for a vision and help guide its outcome.
As a PO/BA for the past 10 years, I personally thrive on making decisions, talking with stakeholders and making the vision of the product happen through my team I want to be a PO. I have technical skills and knowledge but can’t develop. If you have those technical skills and like negotiation, driving towards a goal, and making decisions be a PO.
If you like digging deep into analysis and supporting other people to make decisions and you yourself done like telling people no, a BA may be a better step in to being a PO later on. You can always choose tiles back and forth these days.