The document discusses the role of a product owner (PO) and proposes an alternative approach. It suggests that rather than having a single PO, an organization should take a system-centric view and: 1) Create a customer development team to understand customer value and validate what to build. 2) Connect this team to the development team to understand costs. 3) Ensure the customer development team consists of and meets with stakeholders to understand risks by studying the market and getting feedback from the development team. 4) This approach avoids bottlenecks and allows for more communication and innovation compared to relying only on a single PO role.

1. Product Owners, Santa and other
goblins
Marko Taipale / Gosei @ AfterWork / Futurice

2. Mythbusting Product Owner role
“Don’t stop; keep challenging”

3. Pat
“the PO”

4. Bob
“the boss”
You are now Ok, so what is
the PO a PO?

10. .. eh, I dunno...

11. Right answer?

12. So what is the
problem that PO
should solve?

13. Have a (product) vision and
business plan
Know the cost and value in order to
prioritize - be responsible for P/L
Listen all stakeholders
Support the team
Understand the risks
Focus on building the right thing
It is all about communication!

15. That is way too
much for one to
handle..
Why do you need a role for all that?
the Company should know and
manage that anyway..

16. You want my honest
Sure opinion?
We do not need product owner, we
need product ownership as a way of
1) making decisions
2) understanding ROI
and business model 3) managing risks
... etc...

17. Is PO any good for any situation?
It is an abstraction within Scrum
method. But it has its use as Firewall
organizational pattern.
.. but that’s about it.

18. Firewall?
..to protect the team from
outside world

19. So how do we find out what to do next?
We study our organization and the
business as a system
.. and then do what we need to do.

20. System?
System is a collection of parts
that interact and influence each other
in order to fulfill the purpose of the system
An organization is human centered system

21. Context for Pat
• New Product Business Development within
existing Product Development Company
• We need to figure out what to build
• And then we need to figure out how to
build it

22. ... about...
Sure the vision
“Vision is just an
opinion stated
passionately”
Do you acknowledge that?
mmm. . What then?

23. we need to validate what we need
to do in order to have a business
Is it ok if I create Customer
Development team around that?
mmm. .
Ok...

24. That team will
Ok. understand the value..
And for the cost I will connect the
Customer Development team with the
Development team.
mmm. . Ok...

25. One more thing..
Yeah?
Customer Development team meet (and
consist) the stakeholders.
Some people in the team will be part of
the development team. That way there is
nice support available for the dev team
too...

26. And...
The Customer Development team
will understand the risk by studying the
market and being connected to dev team.
They will be ensuring we are building the
right thing by executing Lean Startup
cycle: dev team will feedback user data.

27. You know what...
Yeah?
You said that it is all about
communication...
Of course it is...
I have some news for you..

28. ALL the information in the
world
PO
The Development
Team

29. ALL the information in the
world Why to create such
a bottleneck?
PO
The Development
Team

30. Innovation
Customer Development
space
Team
The Development
Much better!
Team

31. You know the best
What’s part?
that?
You do not need me! Nor you need to
send me to the expensive certification
programs..You can actually execute this
without any new role or people...
So can I start today?

33. Study your system

34. Study your system
Forget RIGHT or WRONG

35. Don’t stop;
Keep challenging