Presented at IIBA Baltimore on March 11, 2014. The last 10 years of Agile have focused on the team. The next 10 years of Agile will focus on the enterprise. That said, should the Product Owner continue to be a single person or does it need to evolve as well? Let's cover the basics and then see how LeadingAgile has been successful at leveraging the Product Owner role at scale.
5. 4 Values
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
11. What is a Product Owner?
The Product Owner is the sole person responsible
for managing the Product Backlog.
Product Backlog management includes:
Clearly expressing Product Backlog items;
Ordering the items in the Product Backlog to best achieve goals and
missions;
Optimizing the value of the work the Development Team performs;
Ensuring that the Product Backlog is visible, transparent, and clear
to all, and shows what the Scrum Team will work on next; and,
Ensuring the Development Team understands items in the Product
Backlog to the level needed.
12. Product Owner Success
1. For the Product Owner to succeed, the entire
organization must respect his or her decisions.
2. The Product Owner’s decisions are visible in the
content and ordering of the Product Backlog.
3. No one is allowed to tell the Development Team to
work from a different set of requirements, and the
Development Team isn’t allowed to act on what
anyone else says.
13. Product Owner is a BIG Job!
• Product Manager… vision and direction
• Project Manager… sequence and status
• Business Analyst… elaborating requirements
• Quality Assurance… inspecting outcomes
• Management… terminating and changing
• User Experience… usability
• Team Member… participates with the team
14. The downside of Agile (including Scrum)
is the same thing that makes it great
Last 10 years have been team focused
Next 10 years must be enterprise focused
15. How do we scale Scrum and the
Product Owner role?
20. Team
Portfolio Teams – These teams govern the
portfolio and make sure that work is moving
through the system.
Programs Teams – These teams define
requirements, set technical direction, and provide
context and coordination.
Product Teams – These teams integrate services
and write customer facing features. This is the
proto-typical Scrum team.
Services Teams – These teams support common
services across product lines. These teams
support the needs of the product teams.
PO
Team
Team
Team
21. Team
Team
PO
Team
Team
Portfolio Teams – These teams
govern the portfolio and make
sure that work is moving
through the system.
Programs Teams – These teams define
requirements, set technical direction, and provide
context and coordination.
Product Teams – These teams integrate services
and write customer facing features. This is the
proto-typical Scrum team.
Services Teams – These teams support common
services across product lines. These teams
support the needs of the product teams.
26. Portfolio Teams - Epics
Inception Elaboration Construction Transition
Program Teams - Features
Analysis and Design Build Integrate Stage
Product & Services - Stories
Ready DoneIn Progress
Sprint(s)
Release
Release
Sprint(s)
Epics
Features
Stories
29. To be successful in the next 10
years, do you still think one person can
do all this?
Editor's Notes
Who is this God-like figure?This is typically the product manager. Sometimes a dev manager plays the role of PO. KEY: PO needs support. Often unreasonable to be just 1 person BUT need ONE person to be in charge w/ no ambiguity. 1 voice.Others in your org that might assist: project manager, analyst, UX/Human-Factors, architect, SME, Technical Product Manager.BAs to write the acceptance criteria is great. PO and supporting staff need to work well together. Clear boundaries or way to come to agreement. *** Allow NO ambiguous work into the sprint. ***Product Manager owns the “what and why”. Consider having someone else own the “how” it should work to support the thing the user needs to do. Those might be 2 different skill sets.
Analysis and Design runs independent of the 3 month construction phase. No single feature should take longer than 2 weeks to deconstruct for the Delivery team. The Hub Team just has to make sure they have one or two sprints of work ready to be consumed by the delivery team. There is a continuous elaboration and deconstruction.After the completion of a Sprint, it should only take a few days to Integrate and Stage completed features. The remainder of the time is spent running tests on a feature level. It is a continuous process throughout the release.
Analysis and Design runs independent of the 3 month construction phase. No single feature should take longer than 2 weeks to deconstruct for the Delivery team. The Hub Team just has to make sure they have one or two sprints of work ready to be consumed by the delivery team. There is a continuous elaboration and deconstruction.After the completion of a Sprint, it should only take a few days to Integrate and Stage completed features. The remainder of the time is spent running tests on a feature level. It is a continuous process throughout the release.