PO success Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Greg Miller: Five Qualities of Great Product Owners

The Great Product Owner: Five Qualities of Great Product Owners

In this segment, Greg highlights a specific example of a remarkable Product Owner who would physically visit the team’s building two days a week and sit closely with them, establishing accessibility and close collaboration. What made her stand out was her deep knowledge of the product, as she had been a previous customer and actively used the product being developed.

Furthermore, the great product owner was unafraid to provide valuable insights and articulate why users needed certain features, even if they hadn’t explicitly requested them. She actively participated in every sprint review, where the team would allow her to test the product live and provide immediate feedback. Greg recalls this Product Owner as an integral part of the team, both professionally and personally, emphasizing her pleasant demeanor and strong team integration.

Overall, this segment showcases the qualities of a great product owner: accessibility, deep product knowledge, proactive involvement in sprint reviews, and a strong sense of collaboration and team integration. Such attributes contribute to effective communication, understanding user needs, and ultimately delivering a successful product.

The Bad Product Owner: Building Bridges with Product Owners, to Help Scrum Teams, and PO’s Succeed

In this segment, Greg highlights an example of a Product Owner anti-pattern, where a project manager with limited training and a negative attitude was assigned as the Product Owner for the Scrum team. This led to issues such as micromanagement and team dissatisfaction. Greg emphasizes the importance of building a personal relationship with the product owner and understanding their underlying fears and motivations. He also recommends the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie as a resource for effective communication and relationship-building. This episode sheds light on the challenges of product ownership and provides valuable tips for fostering a positive and collaborative environment.

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 Gregory (Greg) Miller

Greg is an Agilist and Coach who has been working in Agile software development for more than 10 years. He hosts The Agile Within podcast with Mark Metze (a previous guest), which promotes agile behaviors and mindset. He lives in Ohio with his wife and four children, two of which are twins.

You can link with Gregory (Greg) Miller on LinkedIn and connect with Gregory (Greg) Miller on Twitter.

Mirela Mus: From Good to Great, Secrets of Successful Product Owners

In this episode, the focus was on what it means to be a successful product owner. The discussion began by considering the size and nature of the organization, whether it operates in a B2B or B2C environment, and the specific challenges the product owner (PO) needs to navigate. A tip was shared to create a list of requirements for success based on the product and organization context. Some PO hiring teams tips shared included looking for similarities between one’s own business and successful businesses to hire from those industries. The importance of cognitive flexibility as a key skill for POs was also highlighted. The episode also included references to Product People live stream events.

Featured Retrospective for the Week: The Asynchronous Agile Retrospective, a case study by a Product Owner

In this episode, Mirela shared her views on Agile retrospectives and provided practical tips. She recommended that all Product Owners (POs) ask Scrum Masters to host retrospectives. She discussed the benefits of asynchronous retrospectives and encouraged participants to write stories about improvements. Mirela suggested hosting a pre-mortem if a project or situation carries a high risk. She emphasized the importance of reflecting on what could have been done better with the available knowledge at the time. She mentioned the book Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke, and highlighted the need to tune the frequency of retrospectives to address recurring issues effectively.

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About Mirela Mus

Mirela is the founder of Product People, a Product Management Consultancy on a mission to help companies discover and deliver great products faster. They have 41 full-time Product Managers who help companies focus on product-led growth and/or profitability.

You can link with Mirela Mus on LinkedIn and connect with Mirela Mus on Twitter.

Matthias Kostwein: Success as a Scrum Product Owner, explained with a simple video

In this episode, we share two retrospective formats. The one that Matthias likes to use as the Product Owner, is the Client – Team retrospective, where the goal is to engage with the client and try and build a better relationship between Client and Team.

Because Matthias is a Product Owner, we dive into his definition of a successful Product Onwer. He shares the importance of understanding the responsibilities that the Product Owner has, as well as the PO’s role in helping people achieve something great, instead of telling them what to do. In this segment, we also talk about the importance of setting great Sprint Goals, and Matthias shares with us a video that helps explain the importance of knowing how to communicate requirements as a Product Owner.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Meme Agile Retrospective, a fun and engaging format

Matthias prefers to focus on the core aspect of the Retrospective practice, helping the team stay constructive and productive. He likes to change formats regularly, and recommends the “meme retrospective” as a fun and active retrospective format that invites the team members to actively contribute to the retrospective.

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About Matthias Kostwein

Matthias is a Project Manager, turned Programmer, turned PO, turned Client Service Director with a varied background in different industries from Mechanical Engineering to IT Agencies. Throughout all of his journey, Agile has been part of his work life, even before he knew what Scrum was.

You can link with Matthias Kostwein on LinkedIn.