what is an agile product owner
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The Agile Product Owner
Enabling the business to harness the power
of agile delivery, at scale
The agile mindset, and what it means for the business(A 5 minute primer)
Agile development implies a profound and long-lasting impact to the way
the business thinks about delivery value
Old World Lean-Agile World
• Multiple decision makers on product vision and feature
priorities
• Often only engaged at the beginning and end of the project
(e.g. requirements, testing)
Are only involved if there
are serious “show-stoppers”
Updated on project
progress through
status reports
Multiple business stakeholders involved without
clear understanding who is primary decision
maker
Attention!
Project Status
Months
• Product Owner serves as the primary decision maker on
feature priorities and acceptance criteria
• Involved in and understands specific project details
• Engaged throughout the entire product lifecycle and
embedded as a member of the project team
Prioritizes the backlog
stories according to
business value or ROI
The Product Owner coordinates
with other business SME’s to gain
alignment on features and
priorities
Has decision making
authority (80/20 rule)
Understands the vision behind
the product being built
Inspects the product progress at the end of every iteration
and has authority to accept the work done or to provide
feedback
3
Agile thinking enables, (and requires) the business value is delivered
frequently in small intervals, under constant, and close scrutiny
The primary key to business agility is the ability to frame business value as a set of assumptions that are validated through a
continuous stream of delivery. The optimal business solution is iteratively deployed leveraging constant feedback to
maximize the learning and knowledge required to get to the best possible business outcome
1. An active business owner, known as
a Product Owner, is responsible for
defining and grooming a backlog of
business valued features
4. Work is delivered iteratively
and more frequently
3. The Product Owner acts
as the “one voice of the
customer” and is embedded
into the team acting as the
key business liaison
2. The Product Owner
works with SMEs, Users,
Customers, and other
Stakeholders to facilitate
product direction
5. Product owners also form
Product Owner Teams to
coordinate delivery of value
at scale
The agile business organization
(A 1000 foot view)
We will help the business become active solution owners, engaging in a
highly collaborative business technology partnership
• Builds the Product Owner
Organization
• Drives business engagement
• Prioritize increments of business
capability
• Drives collaboration and
coordination of delivery cross team
• Mentors Product owners
• Evaluates progress based on both
learning and success
• Provides foundation for learning
Chief Product
Owner • An active participant in collaborative
workshops
• Validates acceptance criteria for
individual stories
• Verifies functionality as part
informal and formal testing cycles
• locates valid business information
and data to feed acceptance criteria
• Provides business and system related
expertise in a timely manner
Business SME• Shapes the Opportunity
• Actively manages and prioritizes the
backlog according to business value
• Removes Team Impediments
• Business Information Hub
• Actively participates and
engages team ceremonies
• Verifies execution team is producing
valuable work
• Makes timely decisions around
product features
Product Owner1.Adopt new behaviors
based on a set of business
“agile personas” that
clearly articulate the rights
and responsibilities of
business participants in an
agile model
2. Implement interaction
model across the delivery
value stream, visualizing
how the business should
engage with technology
1. Support the definition of
the business value case
2. Decompose opportunity
into a set of business
goals
3. Explore top risks
4. Communicate between
business and Technology
1. Lead epic/story
definition
2. Release planning and
prioritization
3. Reporting on progress
4. Product Backlog
Refinement
1. Provide feedback on detailed
story development
2. Identify acceptance criteria for
stories
3. Prioritize the backlog
4. Communicate progress
5. Raise business risks/issues and
coordinate resolution
6. Drive business adoption
7. Ensure testing of requirements
against stories
1. Drives the effort to incorporate
feedback from end-users and
customers
2. Ensures that business features
are measured against business
KPI’s
3. Incorporates outcomes of
measured customer behavior
into the next set of features to
be delivered
We will provide you with operational advice and coaching necessary to successfully engaging in an agile model of scale, assistant to:
Key to the agile business engagement model is defining the Product
Owner role, and how they engage with both the business and self
organizing delivery teams
What Is Product Owner?
• A business partner representative who supports IT
delivery teams by understanding what solution will
be built, what problems will be solved, and for
whom.
• The business point of contact during the
development, deployment and sustainability of the
solution in collaboration with IT.
• Are the “on the ground” leaders who drive delivery
through to completion.
• Are responsible for making sure business
outcomes are achieved, and business needs are
understood and meet.
The Product Owners are each
dedicated to delivery teams, but
are also part of a larger Product
Owner Team
Product Owners draw on a pool of
Business Subject Matter Experts
to provide clarity on answers
relating to the business domainChief Product Owners drive macro
business prioritization and make
decisions required to deliver on value
across larger programs
Self org
Product Owners are key members
of agile Self Organizing Teams
made up of diverse specialists that
form cross functional capability
- 8 -
There are numerous models that can be used to instantiate a product
owner organization, we will help you choose the right fit based on your
contextProduct Owners can be organized based on how both business and solutions are organized, we have
helped clients adopt a number of models including:
• Product owners allocated to teams based on Geography
• Product owners allocated by Product or LOB
• Product owners assigned to a specific Platform or Service
• Housed in a Centralized unit carved off from the rest of the business
• Embedded within various business departments, using a Decentralized model
• Leveraging a virtual Community of Practice to facilitate knowledge sharing
Product Owner
Example Product Owner Engagement Models
• a dedicated role on a delivery team.
• Have full visibility into the solution
• Resolve impediments and provide feedback in “real time”
• Ensure alignment with core business needs
• Provide frequent elaboration and prioritization of work
• Throughput 50%-100%
• Quality 20% to 40%
• Customer satisfaction 50%-
100%
Product Expert
• part-time commitment with IT taking on some day to day responsibilities
• provides cadence based feedback, resolution of impediments,
prioritization of work and visibility of the solution (weekly/biweekly)
• Moderate to limited engagement with delivery team with IT acting as
Business liaison
• Throughput 20%-30%
• Quality 10%-15%
• Customer satisfaction 20%-30%
Product
Stakeholder
• Traditional Technology and Business engagement
• Limited feedback and solution visibility
• Status reporting style engagement
• Throughput 5%-15%
• Quality 5%-10%
• Customer satisfaction 5% to
15%
- 9 -
Accelerate adoption of the Product Owner mindset through an incremental
adoption approach focused on quick wins and early valueDesign the future agile business delivery
approach adoption using Agile style change
planning tools to put business practitioners
in the driver seat of agile adoptionCo-Create Adoption Model and Plan with All Business Change
Stakeholders
Build a Change Backlog
Build a backlog of adoption increments
“Story” exploration
Active ownership
Business metric validation
Value prioritization
Cross team coordination
Strategic governance
Enterprise
Operating model
Adopt an agile
business model
through an iterative
and incremental
approach
Iterate On Model
Build a Change BacklogAdopt the new model
iteratively
• Plan the rollout of new agile business
capability within your organization using an
incremental rollout approach
• Conduct business and product focused
training and workshops using immersive,
game oriented learning
• Provide business coaching and mentoring
during rollout iterations
• Refine the agile business delivery model to
continually maximize business benefits
Agile Business Adoption Model
…
Agree on an adoption “change
backlog” by decomposing
adoption work into a set of
prioritized adoption "stories"