Some descriptions of the Product Owner role concentrate on writing user stories and participating in various meetings. While useful, these activities should take up maybe 30% of a Product Owner’s time. This presentation covers and illustrates the other 70% activities done by Syneto to successfully bring a product to the market.

1. Product Ownership
vs. Product
Management
Flavius Ștef
Agile Software Meetup
Timișoara, May 2017
V1.0

2. Who Am I?
VP Engineering
Product Owner for Hyper Series

3. Who are you?
Doing Agile?
Work in team with PO role?
Are you a PO?

4. The Product Owner
“Clearly expressing Product
Backlog items”
“Ordering the items in the Product
Backlog”
“Optimizing the value of the work”
“Ensuring that the Product
Backlog is visible, transparent,
and clear”
“Ensuring the Development Team
understands”

5. The Product Owner
Execution oriented
Image: https://techieprincesa.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/scrum.png

6. But in fact…
Scrum elements
Execution Others
This talk

7. The missing 70%
Learn
What should we
build?
Prioritize
In what order?
Build
How can I lead
the team?
Promote
How can we let
the world know?

8. Learn
What should we build?

9. From competition
Case Studies
Datasheets
Whitepapers
Social Media Website Demo
Create Account

10. Top questions
• What are the two top competitors?
• Pricing
• Market positioning
• Penetration strategy
• Use cases
• Features
• Unique selling proposition
• What are substitute technologies / upcoming companies?

11. From analysts: news outlets

12. From analysts: research firms

13. From clients
• In-house events (Partner Gala)
• Quick 30’ call (Skype, WebEx, GoToMeeting)
• Send surveys (123ContactForm)
• Site analytics, log aggregation
• Set up public demo
• CRM/ERP/business systems reports
• Usability testing

14. From failure: technical support systems

15. Prioritize
In what order?

16. A lot of
people to
listen to
• CEO
• Marketing
• Tech. support
• Engineering
• Sales
• Customers
• Analysts
• Competition

17. How to make money from our product?
• When people buy our
product, why do they?
• When they don’t, why don’t
they?
• Where do you lose people in
the funnel? Awareness,
conversion, on-boarding,
retention?

18. Justify the need Business Model Canvas
Lean Canvas
How does the
user solve the
same problem
today?
Avoid solutions
looking for a
problem

19. Tame the HiPPO
1. Start from strategy
2. List all alternatives
3. Discuss (and maybe score)
4. Choose

20. Think different

21. Build
How can I lead the team?

22. Build shared knowledge
• Talk from CTO to junior QA
• Synthesize what you’ve learned
• Explain priorities
• Everyone should understand
context in order to contribute
• UX: workflows
• Engineering: new technologies
• QA: edge cases, inconsistencies

23. Add detail where it’s needed
• Short spec
• Paper prototype
• Interactive prototype
• Design guidelines
Document
Waste
Rework
Waste

24. Idealized version
Discovery Track
- business case
- architecture
- interaction
Delivery Track
- visual design
- coding
- testing
Iteration 6
Iteration 5 Iteration 6
Iteration 7

25. Engage people to
give early feedback

26. A/B testing

27. Don’t wait two weeks to give feedback

28. Not just the product, the whole product

29. Promote
How can we let the world know?

30. Start with the end in mind
Newspaper of the
future
Jun 25
Next
year
3 RON
Just released: version 3.0 of
<product_name> Nunc accumsan porta dui et
ullamcorper. Mauris maximus,
erat et malesuada auctor, lacus
ligula sodales purus, ac aliquet
leo libero vel ex. Aenean nec eros
vel velit congue malesuada.
Maecenas ullamcorper felis lacus,
vel porta orci dignissim eget.
Maecenas sed nunc at velit
pharetra porta.
Nullam metus ex, pretium non
interdum at, congue non ex.
Fusce at velit feugiat, suscipit ex
sit amet, convallis orci. Morbi
pulvinar sem at nisi sagittis, vitae
dictum mi porta. Maecenas
vestibulum sapien massa, sit
amet condimentum libero
venenatis nec. Vestibulum in
feugiat massa. Nullam in neque
tellus.

31. What is your go-to-market strategy?

32. Work with marketing, sales
• Translate new features into benefits
• Provide summary of new product/release/feature
• Review copy
• Participate in webinars
• Promote at trade shows, exhibitions
• Write blog posts
• Record mini-demos
• Hold client demos

33. In a nutshell
Learn
• Competition
• Analysts
• Clients
• Failure
Prioritize Build Promote
• Follow money
• Justify need
• Tame the
HiPPO
• Think different
• Specify
details
• Double track
• Early
feedback
• Whole
• Start from end
• Go-to-market
strategy:
sales,
marketing

34. The one fundamental agile skill

35. Thank you!
Mail: flavius.stef@gmail.com
Web: http://mozaicworks.com/author/flavius-stef/
Twitter: @flaviusstef
Slideshare: https://www.slideshare.net/fstef