How to challenge your product owner

As an agile software developer, you want to understand your product owner’s expertise, so you can work well together with mutual respect. This is harder than it should be, because everyone tends to assume that they know everything (that’s worth knowing), and that everyone else’s job is just some typing and a few meetings.

This presentation describes what happens when you don’t have a proper product owner, and introduces some challenging questions that product owners work on answering. In practice, the product owner role is often an impossible job, especially when it isn’t full-time, so you shouldn’t expect your product owner to be able to answer all of the questions straight away. You might enjoy working together on the challenge, though.

Transcript

1. @PeterHilton http://hilton.org.uk/ How to challenge your product owner 10 things your PO should know that you don’t
2. A software development photo story…
3. HE’S GOING TO SAY EVERYTHING’S A ‘MUST HAVE’ ISN’T HE? PRODUCT BACKLOG PRIORITISATION…
4. LOL ?! IT’S ALL GOT TO BE DONE THIS YEAR Photo - Sebastian Herrmann
5. IT DEPENDS. WHAT COLOUR BLOCKCHAIN DO YOU WANT? OH, THIS SHOULD BE GOOD… Photo - Sebastian Herrmann
6. HOW HARD WOULD IT BE TO ADD A POP-UP SURVEY WIZARD? Photo - Sebastian Herrmann LATER, DURING ESTIMATION…
7. I’VE WORKED OUT EXACTLY HOW TO BUILD IT HAS HE STOPPED TALKING YET? Photo - Sebastian Herrmann
8. … THEN DOUBLE THE ESTIMATED DAYS, AND CHANGE IT TO WEEKS Photo - Sebastian Herrmann MEANWHILE…
9. JUST WORK FASTER! WE ESTIMATE 3 YEARS FOR ALL OF THE FEATURES Photo - Sebastian Herrmann
10. WHY ARE THEY BUILDING THIS? Photo - Sebastian Herrmann LATER…
11. IT’S SO HARD TO USE! Photo - Sebastian Herrmann
12. USABILITY IS SO BAD THAT NO-ONE’S GOING TO USE IT SO WHAT? THE PROJECT WILL BE OVER BY THEN! Photo - Sebastian Herrmann
13. WHY DOESN’T IT JUST WORK ON MOBILE? Photo - Sebastian Herrmann TESTING…
14. I’LL TELL THEM WE NEED A FEW MORE MONTHS Photo - Sebastian Herrmann
15. How many kinds of disfunction did you 
 spot on this team? !15 @PeterHilton •
16. Asking better questions
17. IS THE PRODUCT BACKLOG IN PRIORITY ORDER? YES, ALTHOUGH IT WILL CHANGE FOR THE LATER STUFF AS WE LEARN MORE Photo - You X Ventures PRODUCT BACKLOG…
18. WHO IS THIS FOR? THIS SAVES ANNA THE ACCOUNTANT 1 HOUR EACH DAY NOW I SEE THE BUSINESS VALUE
19. WHAT IF WE DON’T SOLVE THIS PROBLEM? THE COST OF DELAY IS €50K PER MONTH
20. HOW WILL WE KNOW IF THIS WORKS? THE PO SAID THAT THE KPI IS 20% FEWER SUPPORT REQUESTS FOR THIS USER FLOW MEANWHILE…
21. … AND WE CAN MONITOR HOW MANY PEOPLE USE THIS OPTION
22. CAN I JOIN NEXT WEEK’S CUSTOMER MEETING? YOU WENT THIS WEEK, SO I’LL TAKE ANOTHER DEVELOPER NEXT TIME LATER…
23. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WE’RE TRYING TO SOLVE HERE? TAX COMPLIANCE Photo - You X Ventures SO WHAT’S THE PRODUCT VISION?
24. THE VALUE PROPOSITION IS ‘COMPLIANCE BY DESIGN’ GOOD FOLLOW- UP QUESTION
25. SO WHO CAN DEFINE THE PRODUCT IN ONE SENTENCE?
26. HEY, THAT’S WHAT I WAS GOING TO ASK YOU TO DO!
27. What the PO should know (and you don’t)
28. Product definition 1. What’s the problem we’re trying to solve here? 2. Who is the product for? 3. How do you define this product in one sentence? 4. What’s the product vision? 5. What’s the product’s value proposition? !28 @PeterHilton •
29. Product backlog 6. Is the product backlog in priority order? 7. What is the business value? 8. Which customers/users/personas care about this? 9. What if we don’t build this? 10. What is the cost of delay? !29 @PeterHilton •
30. Bonus questions 11. Can I join next week’s customer meeting? 12. How will we know if anyone uses that? 13. How will we know if it works? 14. What is the balance between 
 strategic development and tactical enhancements? 15. What is the balance between 
 technical maintenance and product development? !30 @PeterHilton •
31. These are all 
 hard questions. Product owner is a difficult role. !31 @PeterHilton •
32. ranh / CC BY 2.0
33. Neil Gaiman on product management ‘When people tell you somethings wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. ‘When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.’ !33 @PeterHilton •
34. @PeterHilton http://hilton.org.uk/