Most product managers are not (yet) familiar with Agile, and most agile software teams don't have strong product management resources. Product owners are defined to serve agile teams, but have fundamental challenges staying aware of markets and segments. How to navigate through this? How to pair up resources and hire/staff/train for success?
Presented at Product Camp NYC, July '09
Specifically talking about software, but in the broader context. We see all kinds of companies shipping products/services for revenue that include software, bundle software, depend on SaaS, etc. Let’s assume for now that almost all products are software, depend on software, or build in software.
So place to start is the basics of what a product manager does, then compare it to a product owner. We’re about two years behind. Dev doesn’t understand PM, and went ahead without us. In some ways, takes us back 25 years to the evolution of software product management
Emphasize three audiences, three languages, three challenges. Rest of talk is broken up into three sections, one each for customers, executives and development.
Pragmatic has done a great job of identifying what needs to happen. If you expect to make money on a product or service, these must get done by someone. Lots of ways to carve this if resources allow more than one person, after we acknowledge the necessity. (if this is new to you, lots of material on the prag site.)
For instance, “triad” configuration often recommended by Steve Johnson. Note that entire grid is covered. Or split left (PM) and right (PMM).
We know that we have impossible jobs.
See http://www.scrumalliance.org/articles/39-glossary-of-scrum-terms#1122 From CSM class materials. See http://www.controlchaos.com/certification/cspo.php CSPO: certified scrum product owner. 1-2 days classes, e.g. from Mike Cohn
www.enthiosys.com What does a typical 2-week iteration look like? • A living backlog of prioritized work to be done • A brief planning session in which the backlog items for the sprint will be defined: Team commits to work to be completed, identify tasks (and hours associated), collectively commits to getting it done during course of iteration • A brief daily meeting or scrum , at which progress is explained, upcoming work is described and impediments are raised: • 1.What have you done since the last scrum meeting? 2.What has impeded your work? 3.What do you plan on doing between now and the next scrum meeting? Review with Product Owner to review and accept/reject work Insert example of agenda . . . Insert example of retrospectives Iterations should not be longer than 4 weeks . . . .
Often PO is program manager, requirements analyst, user representative, business analysts… recruited into position without training or any PM experience Certainly, there are executives who would agree that they act as big product owners – but when you check their business cards you see titles like “Senior Product Manager” and “VP Product Management” and “COO, Network Security Products.” They don’t self-identify as product owners.
Makes sense in an IT context, where customers are local and well-understood and not conflicted over priorities/requirements. How would a product owner train up to do more than this? Through existing vehicles named/targeted for product management. E.g. Pragmatic, Berkeley’s Haas programs…
See http://www.scrumalliance.org/articles/39-glossary-of-scrum-terms#1122 From CSM class materials. See http://www.controlchaos.com/certification/cspo.php CSPO: certified scrum product owner. 1-2 days classes, e.g. from Mike Cohn