What Makes a Great Product Owner

Successful organizations put the right people in the right roles, maximizing their ability to apply their strengths to their work. The role of the Product Owner is pivotal to the success of the team and comes with a significant responsibility to the organization.

The characteristics and responsibilities of a Product Owner according to the Scrum Guide 2020 (Scrum.org ) include the following:

• Accountability for maximizing the value delivered by the team
• Management of the Product Backlog including transparency and clarification of work
• Developing and communicating the Product Goal
• Prioritizing the Product Backlog

There are few organizations that are truly agile from top to bottom. It is common for the extent of agile knowledge to stop at the border of the IT and business departments. For a team to be successful, Product Owners need to be trained and aware of their responsibilities towards the team. They need to bring an agile mindset and a commitment to work in collaboration with the team. This includes the understanding that agile ceremonies are not an annoying addition to their work but rather an integral part of their role.

I’ve seen the worst and the best sides of Product Owners in my career in software. The best ones I’ve worked with bring an understanding of their role, a commitment to support the team and a competence in their field of expertise.

Managing Stakeholders and Prioritizing

It is important for the Product Owner to understand their product domain very well. They need to work with the stakeholders, including the users, to know the needs of the product, both now and into the future. They also need to bring those needs to the team in a way that builds business knowledge in the feature team as well as creating open communication.

Some Product Owners see themselves as gatekeepers, keeping the users far from the team, perhaps to avoid distractions or unauthorized requests for work. However, the team benefits the most from direct interaction with the users so that they can truly meet the needs. Assuming the Scrum Master is doing a good job of educating the team and Product Owner on good process, any request would be funneled into the team’s accepted process accordingly.

Sometimes teams can struggle with multiple stakeholders bringing their needs to the team. Many team members are eager to please the customer and try to meet all needs at the same time. This can create challenges in meeting deadlines. Good Product Owners manage these conflicting needs well, giving decisive priority and instructions to the team so that they can focus on the right goal at the right time.

I’ve encountered a Product Owner who refused to prioritize because he said it would lead to the team not delivering everything. The team was trying to deliver on so many things at the same time, not knowing what was important to the business. It’s difficult for the team to succeed in this situation and it can be confusing and demotivating for them. The outcome could be a collection of half-complete features that are never ready for release.

Don’t Support Bullying Behaviour

One of the things I’ve noticed in my career is that heroes are bad for the organization. Strong technical capability can help the team but it must be managed correctly. Relying on one person to continually save the day not only poses the risk of key-man dependency but can also disempower the rest of the team.

If the hotshot imparts knowledge to others and mentors the rest of the team to upskill them, the risk is managed and everyone thrives. However, if their ego becomes more important than the team goals, delivery can suffer. A hero can quickly become a bully, creating an unhealthy dynamic and an unhappy team.

Sometimes Product Owners and leaders promote the wrong behaviours when it comes to heroes. They don’t recognize the risk to the organization and the impact on the team. They see them as deeply valuable have the view that the hero can get things done quicker. This can lead to them getting away with bad behaviours like failing to attend ceremonies or working on things outside the team priorities. This undermines the success of the team and interferes with a healthy team dynamic.

A good Product Owner promotes knowledge sharing, building up others and fair treatment of all team members, including the Scrum Master. It is important to be mindful of the whole team and to promote a healthy culture because unhappy teams rarely deliver well.

Leadership Qualities of a Product Owner

Product Owners are leaders. They lead by making decisions about features and priorities. They also lead by engaging professionally in the meetings they attend. They should attend ceremonies because these are the mechanisms for executing on their requirements. If they are not present to clarify priorities and requirements, it’s unfair to expect the team to deliver well. Daily engagement with the team sends a message that the Product Owner is committed to supporting the team in delivery.

They also support the Scrum Master in promoting good agile practices. I’ve been in situations where Product Owners insist on overriding good agile practice for example directly assigning work to Developers. This undermines the role of the Scrum Master and disempowers the team. Not only is it an agile anti-pattern but it leads to confusion and dysfunctional team dynamics.

If external stakeholders are not clear on agile practices, the Product Owner can guide them or refer them to the Scrum Master. This collaboration helps to align everyone in the value chain to follow good process and to deliver high quality software.

People in corporate organizations can have a multitude of agendas and can easily get caught up in corporate politics. Good leaders and good Product Owners are driven by what is in the best interests of the organization. It takes courage and true leadership to steer the team in the direction of what’s right, rather than what’s good for one individual and their career.

Be a Decent Human Being

I’ve seen some heartless leaders expecting output from people who are struggling with illness or serious difficulty in their personal lives. Team members are human and they deliver their best work when they are offered support and compassion.

One of the best Product Owners I have worked with was deeply compassionate. Not only was he involved in the ceremonies daily with the team, but he also cared about each person’s wellbeing and put that above any single deliverable. Working so closely with the team also allowed him to truly understand the roadblocks they faced and to work on addressing them.

Sometimes people make mistakes, even Product Owners. The requirements defined could be flawed or incomplete. When the team has worked hard to deliver something and a gap is discovered, it’s the right thing to do to take accountability. Instead of logging defects and blaming the team, a decent human being takes responsibility for the mistake. In so doing, they gain the respect and loyalty of the team that nothing can disrupt. It gives the team the feeling of being supported by someone who wants to see them succeed.

Some teams operate in environments where they don’t have the support of their leadership. Sometimes they are blamed for things that are outside their control, despite delivering good quality software for years under difficult circumstances. Many teams are measured in ways that promote behaviour that compromises agile practices and gets in the way of delivering well. The support of a compassionate and decisive Product Owner goes a long way to mitigate the impact of these aspects on motivation and productivity. Team members want to deliver good software and they need support from at least someone in a leadership position.

Set the Strategy and Guide the Team Towards it

It’s possible that daily work can become all-consuming and that we are in a constant state of firefighting. It is important for the Product Owners to set aside time to think about and define the strategy for the product into the future. When we bring this to the team, it is deeply motivating.

In a large corporate bank, my team delivered a project that saved the organization tens of millions each month going forward. Once this was communicated to the team, they were so happy that their work had meaning, and it brought a sense of accomplishment for what they achieved. Team members thrive when they align their daily work with tangible benefits to the organization. When this is quantified, the team understands that what they do matters, and this is invaluable.

Enable the Team with the right Resources

Sometimes teams are really struggling to deliver, despite all efforts. It is important for the Product Owner to provide adequate budget that allows the team to deliver the product effectively and efficiently.

Working with the team daily also enables the Product Owner to gain an awareness of what is needed by the team. It helps to understand what tools they require, what roles are needed and any other resources that could help them to deliver. If they need special software, licenses might need to be acquired. They need the right people, like Business Analysts to define the requirements well. Enabling the team to deliver includes ensuring that sufficient budget is in place.

Great Product Owners have qualities that most strong achievers do. They are collaborative and supportive, they communicate well, are competent in their knowledge and their role and they have the courage and aptitude to lead. It is important that those in the role take the responsibility seriously and focus their attention on supporting and enabling the team so that the team can deliver in the best way possible.