Agile Roles #3 The Product Owner 14 Sept 2016

Thanks to our sponsors

Assurity Consulting

ASB Bank

HALO Consulting

This event

• Restrooms

• Fire exits

• Sli.do #Agile

• Introduction

The Product Owner What is this Mythical Beast?

Anthony Marter @antzzzm

Where am I coming from?

• Product Ownership at scale

–Fiserv: 1 team -> 6+ teams

–Orion: Cross organisation release train

• Building products

• Large, monolithic products*

• Multiple teams working on a single release

In the beginning…

The Basics

What do I do?

• Create Backlog

• Prioritise Backlog

• Work with team to deliver backlog

• Go have coffee?

Why do I care about being agile?

“My vision for our organisation is

that we will regularly ship product

(software) that meets the needs of

our users”

Let’s break it down…

• “…regularly ship product…”

–We live in an uncertain world of unpredictable interactions

–There’s always a new client

• “…meets the needs of our users…”

–Solves their business problem (not features)

–Meets only their needs, not imagined needs

Always be delivering VALUE

What is VALUE?

But what do I actually do?

WHY

WHAT

HOW

Pro

du

ct O

wn

er

De

live

ry T

ea

m

Team Success

Build this feature!

Solve this problem!

Requirements Up front design

No change allowed Doesn’t work how we expected it to

Churn

Business Problem Team finds solution

Innovation

Empowerment

Validation

Did it work?

Successful Team?

“The team can understand the

business problem, self-organise

around solving it, and recognise

when it is solved”

Sounds easy right?

The Challenges

Are we solving a business problem?

• We’ve come from a world of features

• We need to solve… OMG SHINY TECH THINGS

• Business problems tend to change less over time

”Let’s lift this up a level”

Which business problem do we solve?

Value

Architecture

Market/ Features

Quality

Tech Debt

Team Happiness

Support Delivery

Engineering

Innovation

UX

Security/ Compliance

...

What do we value?

• Varies with time, environment

• Can’t be consistently quantified

• Can be agreed on?

Quality

Timeliness

Team

Happiness

Technical

Debt

Reduction

Build, Elaborate and Prioritise the Backlog

Communicating Vision

• Between the Business and the Delivery Team(s)

• Specification by Example

• Workshops

• Never Assume

WHAT

I

KNOW

WHAT

YOU

KNOW

WHAT

WE

KNOW

Decision Making

• I am a human (dragon?), not a rulebook

VELOCITY BLAME

SCAPEGOAT

Done Done Done!

How big is the role?

1:2

Scaling

Chief Product Owner (Spotify)

Software Product Manager (Fiserv)

Solution Product Owner (Orion Health)

Capability PO

Team PO

Component PO

Capability PO

Team PO

Component PO

Capability PO

Team PO

Component PO

Capability PO

Team PO

Component PO

Do you need a mythical beast?

• Product Manager – deep into market

–NZ context – not always co-located

• Business Analyst – part of the team finding solutions

• YMMV – how big are the roles in your organisation?

Product Manager

(Subject Matter Expert)

Business Analyst

(part of team)

Product

Owner

Product

Owner

Business Analyst

(part of team) Roadmap

Scrum

Events

Product Manager

(Subject Matter Expert)

The Business Analyst (YMMV)?

Overall Product (or Capability) Scope

Specific

Busin

ess P

roble

m

Product Owner

Bu

sin

ess A

na

lyst

Sp

ecific

Bu

sin

ess P

rob

lem

Specific

Busin

ess P

roble

m

Product Owner:

• Broad but shallow

Business Analyst:

• Narrow but deep

Blurred Lines:

• Product Analyst role

Too many hats?

• Product Owner = Random business guy

• Product Owner = Scrum Master

• Product Owner = Team Lead (or other tech person)

• Product Owner = Business Analyst

• Product Owner = Product Owner

Bringing it back together

Enabling Organisational Agility

Organisational Agility

“Our business can survive and thrive

in an ever changing environment”

The Effective PO – Measure 1

”We solve the business problems of

our users, we don’t just deliver them

features (and we validate)”

The Effective PO – Measure 2

“We ship regularly, meaning we can

rapidly adapt to change”

The Effective PO – Measure 3

“We utilise the full capability of the

smart people in our teams”

And that’s all folks!

Are your Product Owners effective?

meetup.com/Product-Management-Auckland/

Questions?

Sli.do #Agile

Coming events

Next Event :

Unconference format – Agile Roles

Date: 28th of September

Time: 5:45 PM

Venue: AUT WG901/2/3

Let’s stay in touch!

@AgileAuckland

meetup.com/Agile-Auckland/

Group: Agile Auckland

info@agileprofessionals.net

Thanks to our sponsors

Assurity Consulting

ASB Bank

HALO Consulting

Special Thanks

• Event organised by volunteers

• Jim from SERL for venue and catering

Software Engineering Research Laboratory

Coming events

Next Event :

Unconference format – Agile Roles

Date: 28th of September

Time: 5:45 PM

Venue: AUT WG901/2/3