The Secret to Product Owner Success

Building the “right” product takes a village.

Why do we gravitate towards silos? It starts simple enough. We want desperately for someone to own something. Our instinct tells us that one source of information and decisions will be more efficient and effective.

Before long, this single source of truth becomes a bottleneck. All information and decisions must flow through this one source. Stakeholder requests, customer needs, and business goals must filter through this central channel. The result is a constraint that limits the bandwidth for achieving shared understanding, innovation, throughput, and value production.

As much as I hate to admit it, this is exactly what has happened with the role of the Product Owner. We had good intent with the role. But it has gone awry. Teams are isolated from stakeholders and users. They have become order takers. Their ownership is low.

Symptoms of a problem are around every turn. The Agile team reads Stories in Jira to understand what they need to build. The Product Owner is not present except during the Sprint Review and sometimes Sprint Planning. Stakeholders and users are never seen by the team. The team focuses on delivering the product “right,” but delivering the “right” product is not part of their concern.

Is this familiar to you? I find it to be quiet common.

It is time to change the game.

The Perils of the Single Product Owner

The role of Product Owner is often referred to as the “One Voice.” The unfortunate term “One Wringable Neck” is often used as well. Both of these designations tend to isolate the Product Owner from the rest of the team. It creates a lonely existence for Product Owners. All accountability falls on their shoulders. It is too much.

Having all ownership on one person is not the best move.

Product development is complex and uncertain. As such, having all ownership on one person is not the best move. Keeping changing customer needs, business strategy, and technology in alignment is a daunting task. And we are crazy to think one human can handle all of this.

There is another unfortunate consequence with solo product ownership—team ownership in the solution reduces. This constrains team innovation as solution ideation is isolated to the Product Owner. Often, this results in reduced team morale as the team falls victim to taking orders versus contributing to the solution. Reduced ownership does not inspire the team. I can understand. It would have the same effect on me.

Also, the team is often excluded from interactions with stakeholders and customers. The Product Owner personally handles these interactions and communicates needs to the team. The result is a team with limited understanding of business and customer needs. Without empathy, delivery efforts are compromised.

So what should we do? The secret is found in teamwork through a “Whole Team” approach. Let’s break it down.

The Beauty of Collective Product Ownership

Having ownership across an entire team will provide an advantage over a team with only one owner.

A team is a force multiplier. As proof, think of your most memorable team experience. Remember how each person brought a different perspective and unique experiences. This is the fuel for the force multiplier. No one individual on the team is smarter than the whole. To capitalize on these truths, collective product ownership engages the entire team in all aspects of the product. As a result, the team bands together and better ideas will flourish.

Having ownership across an entire team will provide an advantage

Further, there is no reason for the Product Owner to engage with the product community alone. Relationships with stakeholders, users, and other subject matter experts are critical. In collective product ownership, these relationships expand beyond the realm of the Product Owner. They become a focus for the entire team.

Team awareness of purpose emerges by forming these direct product community connections. Direct engagement removes silos and handoffs, ensuring rapid alignment. Feedback loops increase. Customer empathy grows. The increase in the team’s purpose and alignment results in an exponential increase in the team’s solution ownership. Delivering the “right” solution for the customer gains momentum. As a result, team happiness will move in a positive direction.

Making Collective Product Ownership a Reality

So, how should we go about creating this type of environment? From my experience, the quickest way is to evolve the role of the Product Owner. Rather than being the sole owner, the role must become a facilitator of teams to deliver the “right” product. This facilitation role requires several supporting behaviors.

First, the Product Owner needs to foster a learning environment. This requires an investment in learning. In this mode, team learning is not treated as a cost. Rather, Product Owners will recognize learning as a critical investment. Experimentation results in both successes and failures. To elevate learning, the Product Owner will expect and celebrate both types of outcomes.

Second, the concept of “Whole Team” engagement requires deliberate nurturing. The Product Owner will need to include team members where they have not been before. The product community may consider this strange and unnecessary at first. But it will gain acceptance with the noticeable increase in team ownership and value production.

Third, organizational alignment must be a focus. The Product Owner will invite stakeholders to Sprint Review and Backlog Refinement ceremonies. This will serve to provide a feedback loop between the stakeholders and the team. The Product Owner will also share the team’s learning insights with the organization and the organization’s goals with the team. Finally, the Product Owner will work to remove organizational barriers impeding the team.

Last but not least, the Product Owner will act as a member of the team and be present. This includes participating in all aspects of discovery, delivery, and user testing. When the team has immediate access to the Product Owner, decision making and reaching shared understanding becomes easy and fast. Engaging as a team member also allows the Product Owner to better coach the team in the moment. High Product Owner participation accelerates team adoption of collective product ownership.

Building the Right Product Takes a Village

Having one owner for a product can lead to an unnecessary boundary between the product strategy and the team. This isolates the team from product ideation, customer engagement, and decision making. Delivering the ”right” product becomes complicated and error prone. At its worst, it can lead to team members becoming order takers versus innovators.

But a “Whole Team” collective product ownership approach can be a force multiplier. Many minds working together will catapult your product to a positive customer outcome and business impact.

Give it a try. Removing team boundaries for product ownership will set your product and team free. Your team and your customers will be happier. And as a Product Owner, you will be able to sleep at night.

---

Related Posts

• Customizing Agile Coaching to a Team’s Product Context
• Is Agile All About Better, Faster, and Cheaper?
• Remove Date Driven Behavior to Achieve Agility—Commit to Value, Not Dates
• Limit What You Start to Go Faster: Priorities and Simplicity
• Improvement Versus Delivery