This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Product Management and Scrum
Building products requires that you consider a series of strategic activities. Consider the following list:
Analyzing the industry and competition
Maximizing ROI
Forecasting and assessing feasibility
Developing product strategy
Planning releases
Identifying customers and their needs
Roadmapping the product
Auditing results
Creating outbound messaging
Sustaining the product
Executing the release
Creating the business case
Identifying product requirements
Launching the product
Developing customer retention strategy
Defining product features and initiatives
Retiring the product
Marketing and branding
How many of these fit squarely in the realm of Scrum? Maybe three or four, but not many.
The world of product management is a lot bigger than Scrum, as suggested in Figure 1-7, which quite possibly explains why there is such a large Product Management Vacuum in the software industry.
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Figure 1-7 Scrum is augmented by many, many practices. (Figure © 1993-2016 Scrum.org. All rights reserved.)
This is where the Product Owner comes in. A Product Owner is one of the three Scrum roles. Although most product management activities are not part of the Scrum framework, as shown in Figure 1-8, a good Product Owner will take them on to fill the Product Management Vacuum.
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Figure 1-8 Product Ownership is agile product management leveraging Scrum.
In other words, a good Product Owner is an agile Product Manager.
When I work with an organization to identify ideal candidates for the Product Owner role, I first ask about the strategic activities above and who does them. If the organization already has a Product Manager who does many of these activities, then I consider them an ideal candidate for Product Owner. If nobody is doing these activities or that person is not willing or able to commit to a Product Owner role, then I insist on empowering our Product Owner to own these activities as a way of elevating the role beyond the tactical to the strategic.
An empowered and entrepreneurial Product Owner fills the Product Management Vacuum, as shown in Figure 1-9.
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Figure 1-9 The Product Owner and the Product Management Vacuum