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Building Great Products Lessons from a Successful Product Owner

Rathinakumar Balasubramanian, PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM

September, 2012

Examples

www.agiletour.com 05/05/09

What Is a Great Product?

Role of a Product Owner

• Build a product Backlog

• Priortize the product backlog items

• Clarify the backlog items for the development team

• Ensure the ROI of the product

www.agiletour.com 15/sep/12


Shan Product Owner

Padma Scrum Master

Development Team

Peter Cathy

Case Study - Our Agile Team

The Team worked really hard.

The Product Owner always ensured that the product backlog is up-to-date and prioritized. He spends a lot of time collaborating with the team.

The Scrum Master felt everything went alright.

But Lukewarm Response from the customers.

WHY????


The Problem

• Should solve the need for the end-users

• Should provide easy adoption

• Should be ahead of competition

• Should provide ROI


Challenges in Building Great Products

1. Dependent on Product Managers, Users, Customer Survey

2. Heavy reliance on user stories

3. Scalability Issues

4. Translation of mental models

www.agiletour.com 15/sep/12

Challenges for the Product Owner

The hardest single part of building a

software system is deciding precisely

what to build.

- Fed Brooks (1987)


Good Practices – A Product Owner Perspective

1

‘Single Source’ for Requirements

is a Myth.

Conflicting Requirements

are the norm.



1

User Stories are not requirements.

They are starting point for building one.



2

Some things just aren’t

user stories.

- Mike Cohn



2

Scalability Issues

Multiple Forms of requirements Example: Conflicting requirements

Complexity and Legacy Example: Interdependencies

Large organizations Example: Distributed Teams



3

Software Requirements is a

communication problem.

- Mike Cohn



4

Requirements is a SKILL – Cognitive

1. Visualizing

2. Writing

3. Communicating

4. Nurturing



4

Let requirements to evolve throughout the product development.

Let the requirements come from a wide-range of stakeholders


Summary

1

Agile requirements are essentially conversations between the people who will use the product and the people who build the product.

Conversations does not stop with talking.


Summary

2

Adopt suitable modes / forms of expressing requirements.

If it makes sense to use forms other than user stories, the do so.

Realise the ‘scale’ is an important factor.


Summary

3

Be cognizant that it takes special skills to be a successful product owner.

Good News: It is a skill that can be acquired and strengthened.


Summary

4

THANK YOU


Questions?