Every Product Owner is Different

Every Product Owner is different. Every Product Owner needs to work out what is right the right way for them to fill the Product Owner role. Every organization is different. Every team is different, and every individual is different.

For a newly appointed Product Owner, the first job is to sit down and decide what type of Product Owner they will be. Both what the organization expects of them and what type of Product Owner they want to be. For example:

• They may be a Backlog Administrator taking instructions from others, structuring and filtering the backlog, working effectively with the team, and burning down the backlog.
• They may be a Subject Matter Expert using expert knowledge of the domain to decide what the right product to build is, then helping team members understand the details of what is being built.
• Some Product Owners will work like Business Analysts. They will analyze internal process and business lines, meet with stakeholders, and balance competing internal requests. Frequently they will work as proxy customers.
• Others Product Owners will need to get out on the road. They will meet with customers—and potential customers. They will study their market and seek out opportunities using the skills of Product Management.

All Product Owners will need to call on skills from other fields too: Project Management, Consulting, and Entrepreneurship, to name a few. Every organization will — rightly or wrongly — expect different things from the people it anoints Product Owner.

Source: The Art of Agile Product Ownership: A Guide for Product Managers, Business Analysts, and Entrepreneurs; Allan Kelly, Apress

Read the complete The Art of Agile Product Ownership book review

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