Product Owners are accountable for defining the why, who, and what, Why it is worthwhile to develop a product, who the product is for, and what features the product should contain.
Requirements
- Ability to not only listen to stakeholder wishes but anticipate customer needs as well
- Ability to articulate what will transform that story into a product feature to delight the end user.
- Create safety and accountability by delegating task/ceremony facilitation when possible.
- Enable collaboration and empower the developers by finding the right people for them to talk to.
- Possessing the courage and the capability to engage when things get difficult and mediate to reach a solution.
- Calmly and effectively provide feedback to Product Strategy and General Managers if goals are not aligned or could be reworked either inside or outside of your unit.
- Take ownership of the work product and how it’s delivered. This includes being brave enough to have hard conversations, creating trust in the squad, calmly explaining impediments, and pivoting at a moment’s notice
Responsibilities
- Take the vision of the Product Strategy and translate the work into user stories.
- Manage and prioritize the backlog to ensure it is stocked with clearly expressed items that help reach the product goal
- Regularly update and refine the backlog together with the squad
- Be a liaison between product and development, where needed – they help to explain and translate the how and why
- Collect feedback from users, customers, and stakeholders on the product increments
- Manage interdependencies between squad/team
- Enable collaboration, removing impediments to empower the squad to find solutions to move the work forward
Other
- Define the overall vision in partnership with Product Strategy and General Manager.
- Travel to client sites and or conferences to lead and facilitate discussions around the product, roadmap, and collection of user feedback for progressive improvement.
- Planning and delivery of presentations to clients and potential customers leading to growth and adoption of the product.
- Excellent communication (written and oral) and interpersonal skills.
- Strong organizational, multi-tasking, and time-management skills.
