The 7 Strategic Skills of a Product Owner

In the ever-evolving landscape of the digital world, the roles of Digital Product Manager and Product Owner, though distinct, share a considerable overlap that harnesses the core of Product Management principles, methods, and skills. This fusion has significantly revolutionized the software industry, bridging the gap between abstract concepts and tangible results.?

While I may risk simplifying a topic rich for deeper exploration, it's crucial to focus on the converging strengths of these two pivotal roles. Today, I aim to shed light on the essential strategic skills that underpin the success of every forward-thinking Product Owner.

1. Vision/Roadmap/Value
2. Customer Centricity
3. Prioritization
4. Negotiation & Communication
5. Product & Process Design?
6. Sizing
7. Follow Market Trends and Emerging Technologies

1. Vision/Roadmap/Value?

The cornerstone of effective product ownership lies in the articulation of a clear vision, the mapping of a strategic roadmap, and the relentless pursuit of value. A Product Owner must not only envision the future state of the product but also chart a course that navigates through the complexities of development, always with an eye on delivering unmatched value to both users and stakeholders.?

There is a reason why “Value Proposition,” which contains the word V-A-L-U-E, leads the Product Management world.

Value and Vision are great must-haves, yet they may mean nothing if you can’t get together a roadmap that will lead you and your customers to them.

2. Customer Centricity

Emphasizing the art of placing the customer at the core of every decision, this strategic skill involves deeply understanding and continuously engaging with customers to ensure the product not only meets but exceeds their needs and expectations. This approach drives product innovation and ensures long-term success by creating strong, lasting connections with the user base.?

Start by utilizing customer feedback through numerous channels, such as Sales, Marketing, Social Media Comments, e-mail, Feedback Forms, Customer Support, A/B Tests, and Voice of Customer (VOC) Programs (NPS, CES, CSAT).?

Before that, ensure you have segmented your market with personas and try to identify patterns between these personas and the inputs. Today, AI can help you analyze large amounts of data, especially in natural language (including multilingual versions).

Put together design thinking sessions with design focus groups by inviting your customers and co-create with them. Don’t be afraid to be compared with the market or competitive, well-established functional trends.

Follow up with mockups and get feedback through rapid prototyping by closing the loop.

3. Prioritization

In a world inundated with features, requests, and ideas, prioritizing is not just a skill but a strategic asset. Prioritization ensures that resources are allocated to initiatives that offer the highest value, align with the product vision, and meet market demands. It's about making informed decisions that balance immediate needs with long-term objectives.?

Beware of "micro-Backlogs"!

Prioritization gets even more complex when you operate in large global organizations with highly matrixed structures.?

In short, each group, or even each person from the input givers of the 1st (green) column, comes pretty much with their own “micro-Backlog”. So, how do you prioritize? Are these micro-Backlogs prioritized within? How do you prioritize their items inside "The One Backlog"? There is only one way:

Before you proceed, though, it is good to spend some time to agree with all decision-makers, input givers, value gainers, and other influencers on:

1. Strong RACI
2. Defining a “Prioritization Decision-Making” Process
3. Communication Plan and Frequency

To explain the “Prioritization Decision-Making” process a bit further, the Product Owner must have a solid and agreed-upon process that defines how they prioritize and make their final decisions on each iteration in highly complex and matrixed organizations with many stakeholders.

Additionally, it is important (and worth a PO to go the extra mile) to help these teams prioritize their own "micro-backlogs."

4. Negotiation &? Communication

The role of a Product Owner is inherently collaborative, requiring a delicate balance between the needs of stakeholders, the capabilities of the development team, and the expectations of customers. Mastery in negotiation allows a Product Owner to navigate these waters, forging pathways to consensus and shared goals, ensuring the product's strategic direction is both ambitious and achievable.

“There is no such thing as a free lunch.”? As a Product Owner, you must learn to live by this, and most importantly, your stakeholders must do the same. For every item you pick to implement, you need to trade off another. So, building consensus through complex buy-ins and trade-offs is an art you need to master, and you need to use solid influence and communication skills.?

Transparency is your ally! Use it, but do it wisely. Communicate clearly and concisely. A Product Owner must ensure that everyone, from team members to stakeholders, is on the same page fully aware of the product's progress, challenges, and changes. This openness not only builds confidence but also encourages collaboration and collective problem-solving.

Set and manage expectations and when and how you say “NO.” Stakeholders tend to interpret that being responsible for having a voice on any topic related to the product translates to immediate influencing on building things or prioritization rearrangements just because they expressed an opinion or shared their view. Quantification, numbers, studies, and existing competitive solutions or reputable global Product trends are your allies.

5. Product & Process Design

Designing products and processes with intentionality and strategic insight is crucial. This involves understanding the user's needs, the market's pulse, and the team's dynamics. A well-designed product delights users, while a thoughtfully crafted process ensures efficiency, adaptability, and the seamless translation of vision into reality.

The two items are entangled. A digital product can be as great as the processes it automates, and a great process can become as efficient as a great digital product enables it.?

Regarding Digital Product Design, you must know all the basics of UX/GUI, best practices for screen real estate utilization, and, of course, follow industry-leading UX trends. Creating paths/journeys for reaching content and functionalities and securing intuitiveness and findability are the Α and Ω of being a PO. You may rely on your UX/GUI experts, but it is important you speak the same language. At the end of the day, you hold the vision and are accountable for the product End to End. So you should have the foundation to challenge your UX team back. Knowing how to facilitate a design thinking session, put together a wireframe, or use a Six Hats Thinking process is a huge asset.

Regarding Process Design, I would like to use one word only: Simplification! Any unnecessary step you can reduce is a win for Product Efficiency and Happy Customer Journeys. Technology is here to help you do that. Understand how technology can enable a process and redesign the process before applying the technology.

6. Sizing

Some might claim that Sizing is an art. That might be right to some extent, yet I think it can be taught much easier than developing empathy. The agile world of Digital Product Development is bombarded and debated daily with ambiguity around the “timelines” topic.?

“By When?” is the key question that troubles most business teams (such as sales and marketing) and often drives them into conflicts with the Product Development teams. Sizing is the key here, and it should help you solve or at least manage this tough topic.?

Yes, "accurate" sizing always comes bottom-up (from the development team), along with the known unknowns and unknown unknowns that can impact the Software Production. However, by now, the world is full of digital products, which you may have either participated in or you can read and learn about them.

As a senior professional, you should be able to know the following for a hypothetical ideal scenario:

? Establish your assumptions

? Size the work that needs to be done

? Size the resources needed to complete the job

? Size the risks/dependencies?

? Leveraging historical data and experiences (in case you are long enough in the team and/or organization)

This is your starting point!

Then, you start verifying the above in your current case, which may lead to confirmation, rejection, and refinement. Some will successfully be identified during the first quick review of the project, and some will appear as you go deeper.

All the above should help you do a “Conditional Sizing” of the effort. Communication, Negotiation, and Expectations Management should help you reach reasonable date agreements.

Remember, the Go-to-Market (G2M) strategy is often waterfall-ish, not agile. Not many marketing departments are considering incorporating “different” G2M strategies that could elevate a digital product and its development. How many of you remember the “launch” of Gmail (invite only) and then being in beta for 5 years? 5 Years Beta is not a mistake. It is a G2M strategy that not only embraces agile development but completes it. They are still launching products like that.

At the end of the day, no matter how you launch your digital product, you should still have an idea of your roadmap and how long it will take to implement.?

“Delivery timelines” are not the only topic in which “sizing” plays an important role. The strategic skill of sizing is important for market understanding and, thus, business and user scaling.

A PO should be able to demonstrate basic sizing analytical thinking; for example being able to answer questions like:

• How much soap do you need to wash all the windows in New York?
• How much money do they make, all the Cinemas in London over the weekend??

7. Follow Market Trends & Emerging Technologies

Following Market Trends and Emerging technologies is extremely important.?

The digital landscape is in a state of perpetual motion, with new trends and technologies emerging at a dizzying pace. A strategic Product Owner keeps a finger on the pulse of the market, anticipating shifts, understanding new technologies, and leveraging this knowledge to keep the product relevant, competitive, and innovative.

While Emerging Technologies will keep you ahead of the game by focusing on innovation and competitive advantage over your “top” competitors, the Market Trends will save you a significant amount of resources you can later direct to the right target. As a Product Owner, you should know by now that “you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”?

Introducing successfully proven processes, functionalities, experiences, and designs that are already out there will help you achieve swift success in customer satisfaction. People love it when Digital Products create a high degree of coziness and familiarity while reducing the need for learning. Intuitiveness is not always hidden in “new cool” designs based on “new cool” UX/GUI studies; it can often be found in users' habits.

Yes, you can, you will, and you may manage to introduce new habits or change old ones to your customers. Just ensure you do it where and when it matters the most so both you and the customer harvest the value out of it.

Balance is the key.

As always, I would love to read your views on the strategic skills a Product Owner or Digital Product Manager should possess.

What would you add/remove/replace and why?

Best,

Vasilis

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