The Great Product Owner: Building Respect and Trust With The Team, The Skills of a Great PO
In this episode, Michael shares an insightful story of a product manager turned Product Owner, faced with the challenges of a complex, high-tech product. Despite initial uncertainty, she learned to trust her team’s expertise and leaned on them for guidance. This shift in approach earned her the respect and credibility of her team. Michael emphasizes the importance of seeking help from the team and highlights this as a key trait of a great Product Owner. This episode provides valuable insights into the qualities that define an exceptional Product Owner.
The Bad Product Owner: When Ego Hinders Progress For PO’s, The Overconfident PO
In this episode, Michael recounts an encounter with a Product Owner (PO) who was overconfident in their skills, while at the same time not providing enough information in user stories, forcing the team to guess what was asked. Despite attempts to offer help, the PO refused assistance, ultimately causing friction. When the situation escalated, the manager intervened, resulting in Michael’s departure from the team. Michael stresses the importance of highlighting the impact on the team and offering constructive feedback on user stories. He introduces the “Michael test” for evaluating a PO’s ability to perform in that role.
The Ultimate Guide to Supporting Product Owners as a Scrum Master
Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.
About Michael Schmidt
Michael a Berlin-based Agile Coach for teams, roles and organisations around software based product development. Michael invented “the taskboard” on his own, which ignited his working agile by conviction some 13 years ago.
You can link with Michael Schmidt on LinkedIn and connect with Michael Schmidt on Twitter.
