Product owners should be employed to make informed decisions about road maps and enhancements. Great product owners can improve the product with little effort or cost using a repeatable methodology. In software development, often the developer and their skills are the product. I will cover why you should act as your own product owner, the product owner mindset, the types of customers you have, the questions to ask them, and how to act on that feedback to help improve your product (you) and your professional life.

1. HOW TO BE
YOUR OWN
PRODUCT
OWNERSTUART PHILLIPS

2. HOW TO THINK LIKE A
PRODUCT OWNER (PO)
A PO asks questions, and makes decisions based on that
feedback that increases the value of the product
A PO should have no opinions, and act only on factual data
A PO should love the market, not the product
A great PO can make improvements in the product without
much cost or effort
Better when this is a continual process
• Cupcakes, not wedding cakes
In many small development shops, there are no dedicated PO,
and you and your skills are really the product
This is all about improving yourself and how you are leveraging
your hard work

3. WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?
Since most of you are the product, how you leverage yourself is
critical to your long-term success
Ask yourself these questions?
• Do you get most of your work from direct customer references or
from keyword searching job boards?
• Do you spent most of your time doing interesting billed work or
dealing with problems?
• Do your customers consider you a trusted advisor to their success
or an easily replaceable generic resource?
If you have never asked these questions, how would you know?
What are your goals?
• Work less hours for more money with better customers
• Grow a business and hire other developers
• Be in a position to volunteer for interesting projects

4. ONLY THREE TYPES OF
CUSTOMERS IN PRODUCT
MANAGEMENT
All customers fall into just three categories
• Your base
• Finished project and the work is done
• How to understand your existing situation based on the
past
• New Customers
• The work is recently started, but not finished
• How to understand your appeal in the present
• Potential Customers
• Never done any work for them
• How to understand future opportunities
Questions to each type of customer are different

5. HOW TO GET THE
INFORMATION?
Simple, Straightforward, Repeatable
• A few hours a month based on your base size
• Better to call than email
• Create simple questionnaires – script
• Use a friend or non-family member (Fiver,
Craigslist)
• Role play with the caller first
• Women tend to get better results
• Better if you can record the calls, and review them
later

6. QUESTION FOR YOUR
EXISTING BASE
“On a scale of 1 to 10, would you recommend me to a friend
or business associate”
• 9,10 – Fans – Delighted, use for references or case studies
• 6,7,8 – You did ok, met the requirements
• 1-5 – Uh-Oh, possible bad reference
• Acknowledge the problem as legitimate
• Identify the problem, “Why did you rate us at the level?”
• Get an example of someone they are happier with in this area
• Group the issues
• Decide how or if you can change each of them
• If you do anything positive, then circle back to notify the
unhappy customer of the change. (Do that personally)
Always thank the customers afterwards for their input

7. QUESTION FOR YOUR NEW
CUSTOMERS
“Why did you choose us?”
• Might be simpler than you think
• “You were local”
• Might be good
• “You had great references and portfolio”
• Might be bad
• “You were much cheaper than your competitors”
• Might make you reconsider your business model
• “You were the only developer with needed skills”
Use this information to adjust your positioning as well
understanding your competition

8. QUESTION FOR POTENTIAL
CUSTOMERS
“What problems do you have, and what are you willing to pay to fix
them?”
Talk about problems the customer cares about, which is usually money
and saving money, or saving time, which is also money
A customer who is not willing to spend money is not a customer
Go back to them “If I could make this for you, would you be
interested?”
• Get conformation of the project and effort
Survey as many other people like them as you can (at least 20, prefer
50) to ask them would they also be interested
So if you have multiple potential projects, you can decide to do the one
that you can then later sell to other customers or turn into an App or
online service
• Gives you a better chance of leveraging your hard work
Use this information to make decisions about future efforts

9. THANK YOU
stuartinsg@hotmail.com
www.linkedin.com/in/stuartgphillips/
http://stuartgphillips.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @MrStuPhillips