A Product Owner is a multifaced talent, His/her responsibility is shared across multiple layers of shared responsibility. This role is an aligned with a chain of responsibilities, should be a visionary of end-to-end product growths, this should be achieved through Product strategy mapping and Product vision Documents. Should take a Strategic stand in many situations of a product life cycle, sometimes need to be Political towards the stakeholders, sometime should be neutral and opposition to make sure that there is no deviation happening in Product Vision.
Always should be a good tactical person with lots of situational approaches, to achieve the product goals. PO is a sole responsible of product backlogs, and health, and should be able to prioritize the benefits with different possible ways to keep the product on track always. He should be motivational Speaker, final answer for developers. Last hope for testers too. Product owner is managing the Definition on done, and setting KPI’s for the Success of the product. Product owner should get proper support and guidance on this from various stakeholders and Product mangers based on the organization structure, and type of Product.
Product owner is responsible for the proper collaborations with various Teams and Stakeholders in order to achieve the goal based on the product Vision. For this PO should do proper research to find the right candidates and should be able to analyze the impact on each of them in the Product. He should able to say NO when where required based on the team’s capacity and sprint velocities during the requirement gathering discussions. However, this NO should be attained through a balancing act, without impacting the Product health and stakeholders’ expectations. Product owner should never take and hard approach while taking a decision, should able to listen all the stakeholders and team’s approaches and challenges with an open mind, and should be able to take the right decision at the right time. If quoting Roman Picher’s words “ PO should neither be a Feature Broker nor Be a Dictator”, it covers all the necessary skills required for a Product Owner.
Key Product Owner Indicators:
Own the product vision. As the person responsible for product strategy, you’ll build the vision for the estrid.com site and ensure it aligns with our overall company strategy. You’ll make tough prioritization decisions while helping the team think strategically about long-term opportunities while balancing short-term objectives.
Become an expert. You’ll become an authority on the practices, innovations, trends, and history of your domain. You’ll share your vision with others both inside and outside of the company so we can make a better product.
Represent the customer. You’ll serve as the champion and voice of customers in every conversation. You will build direct relationships with customers and immerse yourself in their experience of the product. You’ll also strive to ensure everyone on our team understands our customers’ needs.
Collaborate across teams. Your success will require coordination across multiple teams and stakeholders. You’ll play a critical role in creating alignment between teams and ensure we all succeed together.
Make data-informed decisions. You’ll use both quantitative and qualitative data to identify customer pain points and use this information to prioritize your product roadmap.
Experiment. You’ll drive improvements through iterative design and experimentation. You’ll gather data to build a strong understanding of the customer, the friction they experience, and the solutions that lead to a better developer experience.
Measure success. You’ll own the definition of “success” for your product area – making sure the criteria are measurable, attainable, visible to all stakeholders, and create the right incentives.