• Product Owner

How do you develop into a top Product Owner?

After your 2-day Product Owner training, you now have 25 sprints on your counter. Good job! Your Product Backlog is also totally okay. But you still don’t see the real 110 percent team effort happening. What makes you successful as a Product Owner, but not yet at your personal best? How can you develop further, what is the most valuable step in your career? In this blog you will get more insight into the learning line of Product Owners. Quick readers check out this handy overview right away or give me a call for customized advice.

Characteristics of a top Product Owner

First, let’s take a closer look at the Product Owner, that is, you. How would you characterize a good Product Owner? What does he or she have to offer? As far as I am concerned, these are the important characteristics of a Product Owner:

• Has a crystal-clear vision
  Without woolly words or thick documents, a Product Owner clearly lays out the course of action. This helps tremendously in making good decisions on the spot.
  
  

• Has very high quality standards
  A Product Owner wants to deliver the greatest value for the customer. So it is not the own requirements in the product or service that are the focus, but the real value for the end user.
  
  

• Is a star on stage
  In addition to having a top-notch vision, getting that vision across the stage is, of course, critical. A good Product Owner grabs the stage and thus also prepares reviews and sessions to perfection.
  
  

• Creates preconditions for the team to perform
  If you want a team to perform optimally, you will need to create the best preconditions for the team. Avoid distractions and being overruled by others.
  
  

• Is warm and attentive
  If you want to get maximum value out of a team, you will need to give warmth and attention to the entire Scrum team. Sure, you may set high standards and the ceiling tiles may rattle a bit. But the best vibe happens when team members are psychologically secure, bringing out the best in themselves and the team. With wild ideas, cool experiments and boundless commitment.
  
  

• Sets realistic and achievable goals
  Prioritizing with business goals in mind is one of the most important traits. Usually Product Owners have many more ideas than there is time and resources. It makes no sense to just keep putting everything on the Backlog and increasing the requirements to the team. More paper doesn’t come out of the printer if you try to push the paper through it. Grass doesn’t grow harder by pulling on it. Weighing up, prioritizing and saying “no” is all part of the game.
  
  

• Delegates smart
  Micromanaging does not suit a Product Owner. Neither is thinking that as a Product Owner yourself can do everything better. The team you have gathered as Product Owner is much smarter than you alone. So you want to take advantage of that. You want to spark creativity in the team so that the most brilliant solutions, products and services are created. You don’t do that by being on top of everything. You do that by delegating smartly.
  
  

What do the best Product Owners have in common?

Good question, which we covered at length in an earlier blog. Not read it yet? If so, that’s definitely a good idea for understanding your personal learning line as well. In this blog “What do the best Product Owners have in common?” we have elaborated on the above characteristics using what we believe to be one of the best Product Owners in the world: Steve Jobs.

Ham question: how do you develop into that top Product Owner?

To answer that question clearly, I created the table below for you. Want to get started as a Product Owner? Do you want to discover more tools as a more experienced Product Owner? Or do you want to build and fully utilize your skills as a really experienced Product Owner? Take a look at this table and you will know which is the best next step in your career as Product Owner.

Creating your learning line

Enthusiastic about the overview, but still unsure which course your next step will be the most valuable

Do you want to be trained and coached as a Product Owner in the explore as well as the exploit part in one go? Then the Product Owner Mastertrack is for you.

Unsure which course reflects your next step, despite this chart? Give me a call and together we’ll take the practical step into your best-fit learning line. Give me a call and together we’ll take the practical step into your customized learning line.