Green PO: Uniting Business and Planet Value

Patrick Hypscher , along with his collaborators Scott Seivwright and Joanna Masraff ?? , is a pioneer in the field of Green PO. He even offers events and trainings under this name. This article aims to shed light on his journey that led him to collect the knowledge and experience for the area of responsible product ownership in a digital world.

Early Steps in Digitalization and Circular Economy

Patrick's interest in programming began during his school years. “I taught myself Java, PHP, and similar languages from books. Online courses weren't an option back then." He studied an intriguing combination of subjects: economics, which included a segment on ecological thinking, and sociological system theory, philosophy, and philosophy of social sciences. During his studies, he encountered the idea that organizations are social structures, not just mechanical or numerical entities. “My studies gave me the lens through which I see the world,” he acknowledges today. He encountered the themes of digitization and agility in his role as an assistant manager at Bertelsmann, but the entrepreneur in him led him away from the corporate world to start his first startup. As the founder, he also served as the entrepreneurial product owner, making strategic business decisions. The product was an app designed to help people integrate what they learned in training into their habits and daily lives. Recognizing the growing importance of digitalization skills beyond programmers, he then conducted programming workshops for managers and non-IT people.

His next role was at BSH (Bosch Siemens Home Appliances), where he was responsible for introducing the circular economy as an “entrepreneur in the company.” This allows BSH products like coffee machines, dishwashers, and refrigerators to be rented, repaired, and re-used (www.bluemovement.com).“I noticed that there are still not so many who are active in the area of product as a service or circular business model rental. As I learn the most when I talk to others who have similar challenges, I recorded the conversations and made them available as a podcast.” This led to the creation of Circularity.fm, a podcast about business models in the circular economy.

The Founding of Green PO

The circularity in his own career led Patrick to once again leave the corporate world and found a new initiative: Green PO, a platform for sustainably operating product owners. “It's not enough if sustainability takes place in management or strategy departments. We have the greatest impact through our products, and this falls under the responsibility of product owners and product managers. To reach them, sustainability must follow the logic of making money and should not be conveyed as a missionary approach.” Future businesses must consider the “Planet Value” alongside Business and Customer Value. The deer as a stakeholder? “The problem is: I can't talk to the deer. And I can't recognize the impact on nature in 2-week Sprints. But I can extend many tools like Design Thinking and Lean Startup to consider non-human beings as customers.”

More important than applying tools is forming alliances with key stakeholders. The Green PO Ladder visualizes this connection as a ladder:

• Ambition: Your own ambition level defines the scope of the following steps.
• Inspiration: Inspiration helps spark change and helps people see how it can be done.
• Context: Commercial, environmental, and social sustainability must go together to create a lasting impact.
• Allies: If ambitions span beyond the individual area of control, other people need to support the effort.?
• Tools: Suitable instruments like a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) help to build a more sustainable product.

Patrick has advice for product owners who can't enforce their inner convictions and ambitions for sustainable product design in their organization: “Love it, change it, or leave it.”

Green PO implements agile principles in its activities: “We have a vision of a decentralized organization in common interest. We ship small responsible increments towards that goal.” This includes a Kick-Start Course (4-2h online course) and a Knowledge Hub, where you can find many interesting things about sustainable product development.?

Learning Collaboratively

Equally important are inspiring examples of companies that have already taken significant steps towards the circular economy or decarbonization. Patrick highlights Lorenz as an example, a company that manufactures water meters. These devices must be replaced at regular intervals due to calibration legislation and measuring accuracy. This reduces material usage and environmental impact by 30%, and in the future, with the latest generation of radio water meters, even by up to 80%. A new business model allows customers to receive the readings instead of purchasing the devices, thus opening up new business areas and maintaining competitiveness.

To spread such examples and enable companies to network, Patrick is involved in InDice, a series of events for digital circular economy tailored to the needs of the Berlin industry.

Currently, Patrick and his colleagues are working on finding out more about the needs of product managers. The goal is to identify problems and solutions in sustainable digital products. In a series of interviews, which our company improuv GmbH is also participating in, insights are gathered about the organizational context, customer relationship, product-related processes and tools, as well as personal skills. We are all excited about the results!