H O W T O TA L K T O Y O U R P R O D U C T O W N E R

A N D G E T H I M / H E R T O D O W H A T Y O U W A N T

Engaged leader

Accessible for team

Knows product inside & out

Empowered

Humble

Prepared

ResponsibleUnderstands customer

Understands the company

Naturally communicative

Team player

Knows and understands scrum

Interested in IT

Visionary

Feels ownership of product

Decision maker

Fun

Reasonable

Business case driven

Financially responsible

Likeable

Excellent stakeholder manager

Passionate

Fire

Understands software development lifecycle

Makes roadmaps

Engaged leader

Accessible for team

Knows product inside & out

Empowered

Humble

Prepared

ResponsibleUnderstands customer

Understands the company

Naturally communicative

Team player

Knows and understands scrum

Interested in IT

Visionary

Feels ownership of product

Decision maker

Fun

Reasonable

Business case driven

Financially responsible

Likeable

Excellent stakeholder manager

Passionate

Fire

Understands software development lifecycle

Makes roadmaps

Engaged leader

Accessible for team

Knows product inside & out

Empowered

Humble

Prepared

Responsible

Understands customer

Understands the company

Naturally communicative

Team player

Knows and understands scrum

Interested in ITVisionary

Feels ownership of product

Decision maker

Fun

Reasonable

Business case driven

Financially responsible

Likeable

Excellent stakeholder manager

PassionateFire

Understands software development lifecycle

Agile Mindset

Business knowledge

Vision

IT

PlannerAvailable

Communicator

Ownership

Makes roadmaps

How do I solve this budget problem??!What can I promise the stakeholders?

What are these n3rds saying??!!

I need this new stuff ASAP! When will it be done?

Does this actually help our customers/users?

T H E D I C TAT O R ( M I S S I N G A G I L E M I N D S E T )

• Explain the agile process and values

• Be firm on the agile process and values

• Visualize your process and progress

• Keep asking why

T H E L E A F ( M I S S I N G V I S I O N )

• Create a team and product vision wall

• Share your enthusiasm

• Spend time and energy on your demos

• Organize hackathons

T H E U N E M P O W E R E D

( M I S S I N G O W N E R S H I P )

• Help the product owner make decisions on his/her own

• Create a united front with the product owner against outside pressure

• Visualize problems and inform product owner on impediments early on

• Be predictable and trustworthy in your process

T H E G E E K ( M I S S I N G B U S I N E S S K N O W L E D G E )

• Create user personas together with your product owner

• Organize field trips to see your product used in action

• Oh, and btw: your product owner should never tell you how to implement a user story (helpfull suggestions occasionally allowed)

T H E N 0 0 B ( M I S S I N G I T K N O W L E D G E )

• Be patient :)

• Take your time explaining technical issues

• Create a business case for technical user stories (team is stakeholder too!)

• Be transparent

T H E G H O S T ( M I S S I N G I N A C T I O N )

• Organize ready sessions and help PO get user stories ready

• Visualize and virtualize as much as possible

• Try to co-locate as much as possible

• Limit the definition of ready to INVEST

• If it really cannot be helped: install a proxy PO

T H E A N A R C H I S T ( M I S S I N G P L A N N I N G )

• Know your velocity and backlog size

• Be as predictable as possible in your development process

• Help the PO with creating business cases

T H E L O N E R A N G E R ( M I S S I N G C O M M U N I C AT I O N )

• In the team:

• Force PO to attend (most of) the scrum meetings

• Address the issue during the retrospective: remember that the team is a stakeholder too!

• Outside the team

• Have progress reports and backlog burndown prepped and ready for all stakeholders

As a single point of contact, communicating is essential to the PO role, maybe this is not the right fit for him/her….

A S K AT Y O U R O W N R I S K

Lieve Lieke