In this interview, Jeff Patton discusses the Product Owner role and points out that Agile has never been very focused on the customer. While Agile development excels at “delivery”, it struggles to support “discovery” (i.e. defining what the customer really needs). Also discussed are techniques such as Lean Startup and story maps and the importance of defining business value in an Agile context.
The Product Owner role is regularly debated and discussed. The challenges of the role and the responsabilities encompased by it are a frequent source of discussion and advice. Recently there has been discussion about common aspects of the role and the important activities a product owner needs to ensure happen on an agile project, and the difference between the product owner and product manager
What are the advantages and disadvantages of having the same person fill both the Product Owner and the ScrumMaster role on the same Scrum project? Is this really a workable option?
Scrum works most effectively with a prioritized product backlog. Prioritizing the backlog is part of the product owner role, but what can you do when your product owner won't prioritize the backlog because he or she doesn't see the value in prioritization?
Mainstream Agile is an idea whose time appears to have arrived. Larger consulting services firms are now touting "agility", with firms like IBM Global Business Services and Cap Gemini pitching Agile-related service offerings. Given this kind of sudden mainstream popularity, what does it mean for Agile in general? What does "mainstream" Agile look like? What's in mainstream Agile?
Backlogs have been under constant criticism for quite some time now. Mary Poppendieck suggested that the product backlog should be eliminated if it is not satisfying the desired purpose. Serge Beaumont suggested an interesting way of partitioning the backlog such that it maps to a flow and makes the backlog worthy for existence.
An often asked question is how does Scrum recommend a team to handle bugs? Should they be placed on the product backlog? Or on a separate bug list? If they’re on the backlog, does the Product Owner get to set their priority or are they automatically the most important items? Should there be a separate bug fixing sprint?
Roman Pichler discusses the product backlog along with techniques for effectively grooming it. Complicated applications of the product backlog are covered as well as how to handle nonfunctional requirements and how to scale a product backlog for large projects. This is a chapter excerpt from Roman's book: Agile Product Management with Scrum.
When development teams adopt agile, product management is often caught off guard by the amount of work added to their already overflowing plate. Agile calls for new skills, and traditional staffing models do not typically accommodate the new product owner role. Given that most product managers are overworked, how can they manage these new activities to derive more value?
Chet Hendrickson was interviewed at Agile 2011. He discusses the need to get back to basics, to the ideas that made agile successful in the first place - small teams working closely with empowered product owners and using good technical practices. He describes the Agile Sweet Spot and talks about how organizations can work towards achieving it.
In this interview with Jeff Patton at Agile 2008, he talks about three strategies that can help product owners do their job more effectively by embracing the inherent uncertainty in all software development. Namely they are understanding the ultimate goals of the project, delaying decisions until the last responsible moment, and scaling up by building quality.
