How to become a Product Owner?
A product owner plays a crucial role in both Agile and Scrum teams. In an agile team, a product owner is responsible for managing the needs of the stakeholders and is considered as the sole ambassador for the agile team to the stakeholders. A PO ensures that there is a concise understanding between stakeholders and the agile team. Similarly, in scrum teams, a product owner’s responsibility is absolutely necessary.?
In this guide, you will learn about how to become a product owner along with what are the expected roles and responsibilities of a PO.?
What Does a Product Owner Do?
A product owner’s role includes creating a product roadmap, which is a visual and strategic outline for a product development process. It involves the vision and directions for the team to follow. Moreover, a PO also plays an intermediary for aligning the customer’s needs and the product development process.?
Furthermore, the role of PO extends to determining the goals of the product and creating a list of requirements for meeting the objectives. To further understand the roles of a product owner, here is a list of key roles and responsibilities of a product owner.?
In order to translate the strategic plans in the form of roadmaps, a product owner has to first understand the market and the needs of the customers. A PO works in collaboration with product managers to determine the problem the product is aiming to solve.?
A PO serves as a bridge between the product and development team to ensure there is a clear understanding of product vision.?
Another key role of a PO in agile teams is to manage and prioritize the product backlogs to ensure that the team executes tasks as per the user stories and strategic goals and priorities.?
A PO helps in translating the product manager’s strategies into executable tasks by the product development teams. Most of the time, a product owner also refines or drafts user stories into tasks that the team can execute.
Steps you can follow to become a product owner in agile
Here is a step-by-step guide that you can follow to become a product owner in agile. However, keep in mind that the career path may be different for everyone, but these are the most common steps involved in becoming a product owner.
Do your research?
The first step of starting your product ownership journey is to do your research by reading more about agile product ownership. You can start by reading books and guides to get an in-depth knowledge of product ownership tools, frameworks, and ideas. Product owners usually have a deep understanding of various domains of agile methodology, scrum framework, and product ownership skills, so consider reading about these aspects.?
Get professional training
In order to get into product ownership roles, many organizations prefer professionally trained candidates. And even if your employer or organization does not require various qualifications, you may feel more prepared and confident after pursuing professional training.?
There are various product owner programmes and master classes that you can opt for. Getting professional training will allow you to understand how to create value for the product and your organization as a whole.?
Network with other professionals?
Networking with professionals who are working as product owners or also looking to enter the product ownership domain will allow you to broaden your horizons and increase your exposure to new approaches. You can come across several product owner networking groups on LinkedIn or Facebook, they are a good place to start. Networking allows you to get more insights into other product owner’s personal experiences and learnings.?
Opt for certifications?
Getting certified will allow you to stand out from among other potential candidates. A certification may not be a strict requirement for most organizations, but it will allow you to gain the necessary knowledge of product ownership in an agile environment. You can opt for a product owner certification training or a project management credential in agile.?
Obtain professional experience
Now your goal should be to begin your product owner journey by getting into entry-level product owner job roles. You should aim for creating an attractive CV by highlighting your transferable skills and competencies, which you have developed. You can also mention about the professional training that you have taken throughout your career. It will allow the employer to understand that you are ready to take on responsibilities of a product owner.?
Where do I start learning the Product Owner skills??
Here is a list of common colleges and a list of top universities for product owners that you should know.?
Most common colleges for product owners
You can refer to the following table for the list of most common product owner colleges.
Top 10 universities for product owners
Here is a list of top 10 universities that offer great product owner degrees.?
Is Becoming a Product Owner in 2022 worth it?
Becoming a product owner in 2022 is worth your time and investment as it will help you develop professional, financial, and career growth altogether. You can enjoy high salary perks along with job security as product owners are a growing demand in organizations globally.?
Conclusion
Becoming a product owner requires you to go through a path of gaining knowledge, experience, the necessary PO skills, and have an in-depth understanding of the roles and responsibilities of a PO in an organization. Techcanvass offers product owner certification training to help you become certified in the product owner domain. The training sessions are conducted through live instructor-led sessions where you can easily ask your doubts if any.?