Product Owner vs Product Manager

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po:pm Product Owner vs. Product Manager One person or two? One role or two? Sagi Smolarski - AgileSparks

Transcript of Product Owner vs Product Manager

Page 1: Product Owner vs Product Manager

po:pmProduct Owner vs. Product Manager

One person or two?One role or two?

Sagi Smolarski - AgileSparks

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I have a friend, Sarah, who, years ago,

learned to fly a hot air balloon

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on her first solo flight, Sarah got hopelessly lost

?!?

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...down below, she saw a

campfire and a man next to it, so she lowered

the balloon...

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hey man! where am I?

when she was within ear’s reach, she shouted:

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you are in a hot air balloon,

about 40 feet off the ground!

startled, the man answered...

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Are you an engineer?

Surprised, my friend asked...

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how did you know?

to which the man answered...

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What you told me is 100% correct...

my friend replied...

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... yet it doesn’t help me at all

my friend replied...

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Are you a product

manager?

so the guy asked...

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how the hell did you know?

and Sarah, which happens to be a product

manager at ACME.com answered...

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You don’t know how you got here, you have no clue where you are, you

don’t know how you are going to proceed from here...

to which the man replied...

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...and somehow you found a way to blame me !

to which the man replied...

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what they didn’t know, is that they both work for ACME.com, a pillar of our country’s high

tech industry...

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Meet ACME.com

Marketing

BusinessAnalysts?

icons by dapino http://www.iconarchive.com/show/people-icons-by-dapino.html

Project Management

Office

Product Management

R&D

QualityAssurance

They are running a tight ship, with

well defined groups, clear

responsibilities, really well

organized silos

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All the silos are responsible together for delivering a product

Marketing

BusinessAnalysts?

icons by dapino http://www.iconarchive.com/show/people-icons-by-dapino.html

Project Management

Office

Product Management

R&D

QualityAssurance

“We” are responsible for delivering a valuable product

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Feedback at the speed of the turtle

User

which makes for a pretty unhappy customer, who gets his requests late...

and often... wrong

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The Bungay Friction ModelTo him, this picture is not a joke... it’s reality

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Chaos Report 1994

31%

CriticalFailure

53%

16%

SuccessChallenged

Software Projects Success Rate

Planned Cost: $10M

$27MActual Cost:

Standish Group Chaos Report 1994

...and apparently he is not alone...

On average:

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Looking at Successful Projects

However, some projects do succeed.

What are they doing which makes the

biggest difference?

16%

Success

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His Direct Involvement Throughout The Project

User

Reason #1 For Project Success?

Direct, continuous user involvement

consistently rates as the #1 difference between projects

that succeed...and those that fail

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Minimize the distance from user to maker

The Product Team

POUser

● Avoid miscommunications● Shorten the feedback loop● Seize opportunities● Collaboration instead of negotiation

So, when ACME.com tried to improve, they looked at agile & lean,

and unsurprisingly, those methods

promote proximity of the makers to the

users. There are clear benefits here...

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PO Role Definition

❏ Deliver the right product❏ Articulates and champions the vision❏ Creates & prioritizes the product

backlog❏ Collaborates with the delivery team,

users and other stakeholders on translating the vision to work plans

❏ Manages expectations❏ Accepts work

Scrum, in particular, defines a new role which brings the product manager closer to the user, and to the team that

creates the software

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Challenges with Single PO

➔ Capacity◆ Can you work with customers and be available

to the team all the time?◆ Can you focus on the tactical and still stay on

top of the strategic?➔ Skill set

◆ Can you have business expertise, marketing expertise, engineering expertise and domain expertise?

◆ Do people even want to do all the above?

... but Sarah soon found out that this role creates a new set of challenges, and the extra

closeness to the team is demanding

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MarketingPricingMarket researchCompetitive analysisCustomer relations

Focus & Attention

Long TermStrategy

Short TermTactical

Product BacklogSprint & Release planningAcceptance Criteria

VisionProduct PositioningRoadmap

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

PersonasUXUser stories

CustomerDevelopmentOutbound

EnvironmentsAssetsTechnologyCoding conventionsTesting strategy

ArchitectureTechnology stack

ProductDevelopment

Inbound

User feedbackDesign partnersFocus groups

...indeed, owning a product is a big job,

with many concerns...

Customer Support

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MarketingPricingMarket researchCompetitive analysisCustomer relations

The Natural Solution?

Long TermStrategy

Short TermTactical

Product BacklogSprint & Release planningAcceptance Criteria

VisionProduct PositioningRoadmap

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

PersonasUXUser stories

CustomerDevelopment

EnvironmentsAssetsTechnologyCoding conventionsTesting strategy

ProductDevelopment

ArchitectureTechnology stack

PO

PM

...so they decided to split the role into

two...

...they asked Ron, a Team Lead, to assume the role of PO, while Sarah took on

outbound & long term responsibilities...

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H.L. Mencken

“for every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple... and wrong”

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PM & PO

The Product Team

POUser

The Product Team

POUser

PM

Separations hurt...

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PM & PO

The Product Team

POUser

PM

She understands the customer well

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PM & PO

The Product Team

POUser

PM

She understands the customer well

He doesn’t understands the

customer well➽

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PM & PO

The Product Team

POUser

PM

They do their “agile” thing

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PM & PO

The Product Team

POUser

PM

Who owns the product?

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PM .. .. .. .. vs .. .. .. .. PO

The Product Team

PO

UserPM

Lean thinking and Agile principles are customer-focused for business success. They are not “development processes”

Agile

“the business” R&D

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Making it Work

The Solo PO

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<=>Less… is more

Smaller scope ➽ Smaller groups ➽ More manageable workload ➽ More focus Too often, scaling up

promotes inefficiency and mediocrity

Break your company into small start-ups

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User Segments

Short TermTactical

Long TermStrategy

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

PO

CustomerDevelopment

ProductDevelopment

Short TermTactical

Long TermStrategy

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

POShort Term

TacticalLong Term

Strategy

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

PO

Enterprise clients

Retail clients

B2B

This is one option

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Product Areas / Services

Short TermTactical

Long TermStrategy

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

PO

CustomerDevelopment

ProductDevelopment

Short TermTactical

Long TermStrategy

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

POShort Term

TacticalLong Term

Strategy

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

PO

Users Growth

Shopping Cart

Playlists

This is another option

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The PO Team

Short TermTactical

Long TermStrategy

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

CustomerDevelopment

ProductDevelopment

Short TermTactical

Long TermStrategy

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

Short TermTactical

Long TermStrategy

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

PO

PO

PO

CPOThe Chief Product Owner

You may need to have a Chief Product Owner, but

individual POs still fully own their area

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Leverage Outside Expertise

Product Owner

MarketingSpecialist

But… I’m not a marketing

expert! But I am… and I will help you

market your product

“It take a village to raise a child”African proverb

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Other Roles Are Fine… when they don’t come between the product and its users

Product Owner

ProductMarketing

User

Market

I am responsible for creating a great product

I am responsible for telling the

market about it & bringing in new

users

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Marketing

Project Management

UX Expert

Team Lead /ScrumMaster

Product Owner

Domain expert

Tracking

Risk Management

ALM

Product Discovery

Team

Estimates Architect

Long-term product

architecture

Release Train

Product launch

Pricing

Telling the world about the

product

Positioning

Quality

xx-ilities

Interaction Design

Usability Testing

Visual Design

Long-term Velocity

Domain knowledge

Domain trends

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Long TermStrategy

Short TermTactical

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

Marketing

Project Management

UX Expert

Team Lead /ScrumMaster

Product Owner

Domain expert

Tracking

Risk Management

ALM

Product Discovery

Team

Estimates ArchitectLong-term

product architecture

Release Train

Product launch

Pricing

Telling the world about the

product

Positioning

Quality

xx-ilities

Interaction Design

Usability Testing

Visual Design

Long-term Velocity

Domain trendsDomain trends

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Trade the dream of success... for the reality of feedback

The Big Picture is Smaller than You think

Success Success

what it really looks like

what people think it looks like

Don’t invest too much in long term planning

and analysis

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Experiment

Use experiments & data to drive product direction

A significant portion of the

work should be experiments,

where we check assumptions

against reality

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Not only For Startups

Build Measure

Learn

Insights

Product Data

How fast can you spin that wheel?

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Build the Team’s Knowledge of Users

Spoon feeding teams with detailed user

stories is boring and inefficient

Develop the team’s capabilities to define

work itemsThe team should interact with the

user

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Scaling Up

But... We Need More

SCALEe.g. we have a very large project, for a small # of large clients, so having many

POs working directly with them will impose extra burden on the client

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Scaling Up

First rule of project

SCALING

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Scaling Up

First rule of project

SCALING

DON’T

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Large Projects ... Fail ... Almost Always

Standish Group Chaos Report 2013

A word of warning. Scaling up a project is

harmful

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But if you must Scale there are recipes

Scaling Agile @ Spotify

Here are just some of the most popular

examples

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Scaling Up Agile

All Agile Scaling Models are Wrong...

...but Some are Helpful

There’s no right answer, but some

interesting pointers

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Scaling with SAFe

http://scaledagileframework.com/

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Not my favourite solution, but

sometimes it may make sense

Scaling with SAFe

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MarketingPricingMarket researchCompetitive analysisCustomer relations

The SAFE (?) Solution

Long TermStrategy

Short TermTactical

Product BacklogSprint & Release planningAcceptance Criteria

VisionProduct PositioningRoadmap

CustomerFocus

EngineeringFocus

PersonasUXUser stories

CustomerDevelopment

EnvironmentsAssetsTechnologyCoding conventionsTesting strategy

ProductDevelopment

ArchitectureTechnology stack

PO

PM

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Scaling with Large Scale Scrum

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Product Owner TeamOne Product Owner

Prioritizes all work

Product Area OwnersDefine work

Less separation, that’s better

Scaling with Large Scale Scrum

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Scaling @ Spotify

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Product Ower per SquadSometimes, a Chief Product Owner to help with synchronization

Sounds pretty good :)

Scaling @ Spotify

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What do Agile Product Management Experts Say?

Marty Cagan is a Product Management expert.

He has managed product at ebay, Netscape HP and other

big name companies. He’s now part of the Silicon Valley

Product Group

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He wrote the top selling (*) book on product management.

The book devotes a big section to the role of the Product

Manager

(*) Based on Amazon kindle sales position

What do Agile Product Management Experts Say?

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“...for product software teams...the product manager is the product owner, and he represents the customer, He will need to be extremely involved with the product development team...”

hmmm….

What do Agile Product Management Experts Say?

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“... some also like to have different people covering the product manager and the product owner role, but this is usually a symptom of a deeper problem ...nobody truly owns the product”

What do Agile Product Management Experts Say?

there’s more...

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“... this model is based on a flawed view of software that holds that you can define high-level requirements independent of detailed requirements ”

What do Agile Product Management Experts Say?

flawed indeed...

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“... in companies with this model, product managers become little more than spec-generation service. It is a frustrating job, tends to stifle innovation, and rarely produces successful products ”

What do Agile Product Management Experts Say?

can’t get much clearer...

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Summary

❏ PO which fully owns the product ➽ Less barriers to being Lean & Agile... and successful

❏ Keep that model as long as you can❏ Scale horizontally❏ Less long-term planning, more experiments❏ Get the delivery team closer to the users❏ Other roles can help❏ Create a product discovery team

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❏ When you have no choice, pick a scaling model which keeps the team as close to the user as possible

Summary

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Sarah is now chief Product Owner at ACME.com

She got her hot air balloon pilot license.

Ron is a ScrumMaster on the same project.

Together, they delivered a kick-ass product.

They now get along fine.

SummaryEpilogue