Comments on: Breaking down the agile product owner role http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/breaking-down-the-agile-product-owner-role-web-resources/ Advance Your Business Analysis Career Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:08:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Laura Brandau http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/breaking-down-the-agile-product-owner-role-web-resources/comment-page-1/#comment-212 Laura Brandau Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:25:22 +0000 http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/?p=581#comment-212 Hi Bruce, Thank you so much for your comment. I'd be interested in hearing about how you gain insight into the impact the product owner constraint is having. In my experience, given inadequate detail or information developers tend to try to forge ahead anyway because they are under time constraints or want to be successful. While I can appreciate their perspective, it makes the PO constraint hard to quantify, especially once you forgo the traditional gating mechanisms. Hi Bruce,

Thank you so much for your comment. I’d be interested in hearing about how you gain insight into the impact the product owner constraint is having. In my experience, given inadequate detail or information developers tend to try to forge ahead anyway because they are under time constraints or want to be successful. While I can appreciate their perspective, it makes the PO constraint hard to quantify, especially once you forgo the traditional gating mechanisms.

]]> By: Bruce Winegarden http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/breaking-down-the-agile-product-owner-role-web-resources/comment-page-1/#comment-211 Bruce Winegarden Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:50:45 +0000 http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/?p=581#comment-211 I share your concern that the functions of Product Owner role are not well defined by current Agile methods such as SCRUM or extreme programming. I have 10 years experience in agile development, mostly in a product manager role. Doing a good job requires skills from multiple disciplines such as: business analyst, product management, portfolio management, and human factors / user interface design. Oh yeah, plus quality assurance for functional acceptance tests. I think that companies tend to under staff the Product Owner role. I think of the PO as feeding developers. Good developers have a big appetite and can produce a lot if you feed them well. I think a ratio of 1:4 is good. If you starve developers by constraining access to and availability of the product owner their productivity goes down. This is the number one constraint to optimize if you want to get the most out of agile development. So, what to do if you have a product with a larger development team? One client of mine breaks it down into having “feature owners” to keep their PO to developers ratio up. I share your concern that the functions of Product Owner role are not well defined by current Agile methods such as SCRUM or extreme programming. I have 10 years experience in agile development, mostly in a product manager role.

Doing a good job requires skills from multiple disciplines such as: business analyst, product management, portfolio management, and human factors / user interface design. Oh yeah, plus quality assurance for functional acceptance tests.

I think that companies tend to under staff the Product Owner role. I think of the PO as feeding developers. Good developers have a big appetite and can produce a lot if you feed them well. I think a ratio of 1:4 is good. If you starve developers by constraining access to and availability of the product owner their productivity goes down. This is the number one constraint to optimize if you want to get the most out of agile development.

So, what to do if you have a product with a larger development team? One client of mine breaks it down into having “feature owners” to keep their PO to developers ratio up.

]]> By: Laura Brandau http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/breaking-down-the-agile-product-owner-role-web-resources/comment-page-1/#comment-205 Laura Brandau Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:29:54 +0000 http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/?p=581#comment-205 Hello, Svil, and thanks for you comment. I hadn't quite thought through the implications of having multiple people fill the role from a timing perspective. As you note, that will surely slow the project down as there will need to be more meetings, discussions, and alignment as the multiple perspectives of the product owner team are brought to bear. It would be interesting to hear if the results end up being worth it. If you can optimize a small product owner team and make it fairly efficient in it's decision making, is the value of what's delivered to the organization through the development process improved? Hello, Svil, and thanks for you comment. I hadn’t quite thought through the implications of having multiple people fill the role from a timing perspective. As you note, that will surely slow the project down as there will need to be more meetings, discussions, and alignment as the multiple perspectives of the product owner team are brought to bear. It would be interesting to hear if the results end up being worth it. If you can optimize a small product owner team and make it fairly efficient in it’s decision making, is the value of what’s delivered to the organization through the development process improved?

]]> By: svilen dobrev http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/breaking-down-the-agile-product-owner-role-web-resources/comment-page-1/#comment-204 svilen dobrev Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:21:37 +0000 http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/?p=581#comment-204 g'day. very good thoughts there. let me share my experience. last 2 years i did exactly this stuff - extremely entangled and complex (90k python?) but low-resources project, me being the leader (and also the only methodolohy-aware one in the company), things got pretty rough. i didn't follow exactly Scrum, instead i went by Cockburn's Crystal Clear but all the same, Product Owner roles became a nightmare. Yes they has to be multiple! They are the frontline between pure software and the rest - application/market and organisation. So what i ended was: Business Analyst/Expert, Expert User, Product Manager, Project Manager, Architect, GUI-designer, (And End-Testing). Shared between two people, me and a lady that i was teaching on the run, both with plenty of other duties... impossible! One may say that this or that of the above roles actualy lives elsewhere... yes but 50%/50%. And if u split by the letter, the info has to move more frequently between many more heads, and that slows the project! Probably there has to be 3 people as there are 3 main stakeholdoing directions: development, organisation, endusers; all these has to keep in mind the now and the future. IMO this stuff is usualy all understated, underrated, underestimated, underthought if u want. Regardless of the methodology, these roles has to be there and u cant lump them all into single person for any big project (note: big not just in the sense of people involved, but reality to describe)... That head will explode. have fun svil g’day.
very good thoughts there. let me share my experience.
last 2 years i did exactly this stuff – extremely entangled and complex (90k python?) but low-resources project, me being the leader (and also the only methodolohy-aware one in the company), things got pretty rough.
i didn’t follow exactly Scrum, instead i went by Cockburn’s Crystal Clear but all the same, Product Owner roles became a nightmare. Yes they has to be multiple! They are the frontline between pure software and the rest – application/market and organisation.

So what i ended was: Business Analyst/Expert, Expert User, Product Manager, Project Manager, Architect, GUI-designer, (And End-Testing). Shared between two people, me and a lady that i was teaching on the run, both with plenty of other duties… impossible!

One may say that this or that of the above roles actualy lives elsewhere… yes but 50%/50%. And if u split by the letter, the info has to move more frequently between many more heads, and that slows the project! Probably there has to be 3 people as there are 3 main stakeholdoing directions: development, organisation, endusers; all these has to keep in mind the now and the future.

IMO this stuff is usualy all understated, underrated, underestimated, underthought if u want.

Regardless of the methodology, these roles has to be there and u cant lump them all into single person for any big project (note: big not just in the sense of people involved, but reality to describe)… That head will explode.

have fun
svil

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