Is this you? - Striving to create innovative products in a competitive market, where disruption and volatility are the norm? - Unsure whether the decisions you make are the best to deliver real customer value, while their demands constantly change? - Juggling being a product owner, product manager or analyst across multiple teams? This workshop will help you deeply understand your customers and enable you to deliver products and services that they love. Through mindfulness, you will think more clearly resulting in better decisions, which drive innovative solutions. You will gain practical experience and understanding of why mindfulness is the essential skill for effective product ownership.

1. Page 1
Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Applying Mindfulness
to Innovate
Agenda
• Introductions
• Mindfulness with practices
• Mindful Agile principles
• Role of the Product Owner
and common challenges
• Empathy and Creativity
• Implementing mindfulness
in the Product Owner role
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Mindfulness
• Quality or state of being
aware without judgement or
perceptions
• Deliberately paying attention
to what is happening
all around you
• Being open and present to
what ‘is’
– nothing else
How?
• Informal practice:
– Just breathe
– Clear your mind
– Recall and focus
• Formal practice:
– meditation
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Let’s try it!
• Sit comfortably
• Rest hands on lap
• Close eyes
• Clear your mind
• Focus on your breath
• Don’t follow thoughts
• If distracted or your mind wonders –
gently come back to the breath
Benefits
• Beyond peace and stress relief
• Clarity, calm and awareness
• Creativity and innovation
• Focus and concentration
• Better communication
• Other health benefits including
lower blood pressure and
increased immune response
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
What is the Agile Mindset?
‘Be’ agile -
or ‘do’ agile?
Agile is a Mindset
Grounded in 4 Values
Elaborated through
12 Principles
Executed via
100s of Practices
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Mindful
Agile
Applying
mindfulness to
the agile values
Individuals and Interactions
over processes and tools
Team cohesion and
relationships
Communication and
collaboration
Resilience and well-being
Emotional Intelligence
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Working Software
over comprehensive documentation
Focus on value and quality
Mental clarity, creativity and
idea generation
Sense of meaning and
satisfaction in work
Awareness & innovation
Customer Collaboration
over contract negotiation
Deep empathy
Continuous learning and
discovery
Unbiased, objective insight
generation
Focus on delight
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Responding to Change
over following a plan
Acceptance
Flexibility & adaptation
Openness and willingness
Inclusive decision making
Product Ownership
The hardest part of building any
software system is determining
precisely what to build.
Frederick Brooks
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Product Owner
The product owner is responsible
for maximizing the value of the
product resulting from work of the
Development Team
The product owner is a role on a
product development team
responsible for managing the
product backlog in order to achieve
the desired outcome that a product
development team seeks to
accomplish
https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/product-owner/http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html#team-po
Product Ownership
Business
Advocate
Customer /
End User
Advocate
Decision
Maker
Value
Champion
Problem
Solver
Subject Matter
Expert
Visionary
Communicator
and
collaborator
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
What makes a GREAT Product Owner?
What are the
common
challenges faced
by Product
Owners?
We follow these principles
1. How does mindfulness
relate to agile principles?
2. How would you apply
mindfulness with the
principles in the product
owner role?
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10. Page 10
Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Mindful Product Ownership
• Team & stakeholder interactions
– be present & listen fully
• Story writing – real empathy
• Testing – look, listen and learn
• Workshops
– let go and be open
• Innovate
– be creative without barriers
• Think outside the square
– remove the square
• Focus & flow – get stuff done
Mindful Product Ownership Practices
• Focus
• Value delivery
• Awareness of work
• Awareness of team
Sprint
• Value focus
• Team goals
• Team care
• Generosity
Sprint Plan
• Team cohesion
• Relationships
• Communication
• For the good of all
Stand-up
• Deep listening
• Safe to be wrong
• Acceptance
• Flexibility
Demo
• Open sharing
• Suspend
judgement
• Humbleness
• Resilience
Retro
• Empathy
• Acceptance
• Drop opinions
• Open to learn
User Story
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Innovation The number #1 challenge
of agile projects is to create
a culture of innovation —
everything else pales in
comparison
Dead weight
• How much junk are you carrying
around?
• Memories, perceptions, judgements,
opinions, bias, habits
• Old ways may not be
valid or useful now
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Creative Thinking
• Vertical and lateral thinking
• Design thinking
• Creative thinking techniques:
– Brainstorming
– 6 thinking hats
– Reverse brainstorming
– Random word association
– Brain writing
Innovation
• Vertical and lateral thinking
– Break old ways of thinking
• Clear your mind
• Let go & see things differently
• Open to the new
• Allow space for learning
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Empathy
You’ve got to start with the
customer experience and work
back towards the technology
– not the other way around.
Steve Jobs
Empathy Map
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Empathy Map Think & Feel
• Inner workings
• What really matters
• Aspirations and dreams
• Emotional drivers, fear and motivations
Say & Do
• Visible behaviour and attitude
• Appearance and self image
• What they talk about and do
• What they think v’s what they do
Empathy Map See
• Environment
• Friends and colleagues
• Tools and technology
• Where they work and play
Hear
• Influences and trends
• What people around them tell them
• Media and social messages
• Communications they pay attention to
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Empathy Map Pains
• Challenges
• Frustrations and issues
• Obstacles and limitations
Gains
• Wants and needs
• Hopes and passions
• Measures of success
Mindful Empathy
• Clear your mind
• Drop projections,
perceptions and
perspectives
• Let go of opinions
• See through the users’ eyes
• Open to new ideas
• Allow space for learning
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Collaboration
• To work together for a
shared and common goal
• One team, one goal
• We’re all in this boat
together : we all make it,
or we all sink.
Awareness
Motivation
Synchronisation
Participation
Mediation
Reciprocity
Reflection
Engagement
Collaboration
The team takes
accountability
for success
and a shared
approach to
work
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Communication
The major problem
with communication
is the illusion that it
has occurred.
Albert Einstein
Do we really listen?
• Listen for a chance to escape?
• Listen for a chance to talk?
• Listen to confirm existing view?
• Listen for particular information?
Or
• Listen to really understand
what is being said!
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18. Page 18
Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Mindful Communication
• Clear your mind
• Focus and concentrate
• Be aware of yourself
• Be aware of the other person
• Understand communication styles
Be Present
Mindful Product Ownership in Practice
Team
Interactions
Waiting
Speaking &
Listening
Emails & Calls
Value
Delivery
Anywhere &
anytime
Come back to
the present
Just take 3
breaths
Clear your
mind
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19. Page 19
Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
How will you implement mindfulness?
References
• Mindful Work – David Gelles
• Mindful Leadership (for dummies)
– Juliet Adams and Marina Grazier
• Mindfulness at Work – Dr Stephen McKenzie
• Leading Mindfully – Amanda Sinclair
• Mindset – Dr Carol Dweck
• greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/mindfulness
• siyli.org – Search Inside Yourself Leadership
Institute
• mindful.org
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Mind at Work Consulting / BA & Beyond
Kathy Berkidge
Mindful Product Ownership
Applying Mindfulness to Innovate
Kathy G. Berkidge
kathy@mindatworkconsulting.com.au
@KathyBerkidge
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