What It Takes To Be a Product Owner - Pratap Kumble - Scrum Bangalore 19th Meetup - March 25, 2017 - at Prowareness

1. What it takes to be a
Product Owner
P R A T A P K U M B L E – P R O D U C T O W N E R @ P R O W A R E N E S S

2. Who or what is a Product Owner
The scrum guide says “The Product Owner is responsible for
maximizing the value of the product and the work of the
Development Team.”
http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html
Mike Cohn defines “The Scrum product owner is typically a
project's key stakeholder. Part of the product owner
responsibilities is to have a vision of what he or she wishes to
build, and convey that vision to the scrum team.”
https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/scrum/roles/product-owner

3. Product Vision
Ability to Execute
Leadership
What a
Product Owner
should have

4. Product Vision
 Instinct
• Identifying and finding the right signals & opportunities
• Market research
 User Empathy
• Are we solving the right problem.
• Asking the right questions and understand the “Why” behind the need.
 Prioritization
• Should we build the right thing, build the thing right, build it fast.
• Say no to everything that is not critical or which does not add value

5. Ability to Execute
 Principles (Lean, Agile)
 Practices (Scrum, Kanban, XP)
 Tools (Flow diagrams, wireframes, trackers)
 Metrics

6. Leadership
 Communication
• Interact and engage with different teams and with Stakeholders.
• Understand their needs.
 Negotiation – Product owners influence/lead without authority.
 Team Empathy

7. Anti Patterns – Types of POs
 The no power/half PO/Proxy PO - Let me ask my boss
 Too busy PO - Come back Later or tomorrow
 Far Away PO
 PO by committee

8. What a great product owner should have
 Empowered – Can make decisions on their own
 Knowledge – Know the Domain
 Time – Time for the users/customers, dev teams, other teams

9. Tips on becoming a better product
owner!
 Resonate your product vision
 Understand your strengths and weaknesses. Develop your weaker
areas.
 Earn the authority
 Seek coaching
 Use the right tools to get the job done
 Help your stakeholders and teams to achieve a common agreement on
what is valuable
 BE PASSIONATE

10. Thank You!!
Any questions?