Transcript
Host (0:06)
Have you ever wondered what it really takes to make Agile work well? At the Global Agile Summit, we're bringing you real life first person stories of Agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action. Whether you're a leader, a product innovator, a developer, you'll hear practical insights from those who've done it. They'll be telling their own stories from the stage. I'll tell you more about this at the end of this episode. So stay back and listen to the full detailed description of what we have in store for you at the Global Agile Summit. But if you can't wait, you can go right now to globalagilesummit.com and check out our full schedule for now onto the episode. But I'll see you at the end of this episode with more details on the Global Agile Summit. Talk to you soon. Hello everybody. Welcome to our Friday PO&TGIF episode, of course, this week with Chris Sims. Hey Chris, welcome back.
Chris Sims (1:13)
It's good to be back. I can't believe it's Friday already.
Host (1:16)
Yeah, time flies when you're having fun, right? So, Chris, we'll talk about what great product owners look and sound like in a second. But before let's do the opposite, let's go through the anti pattern. So share with us potentially the worst product owner anti pattern you've witnessed in your career.
Chris Sims (1:38)
Yeah, the one that I've seen most often. So I'll call this one the worst. I have a bonus one if you want it. But the one I've seen most often is a pattern that is often called the proxy product owner. And this pattern is this person is acting as the product owner for the team. Right. They're there at the meetings, they're the one doing the day to day ordering of the product backlog and you know, all of that stuff. But there is somebody else above them who has the ultimate authority and, you know, can swoop in at any time and change everything. And very often that person is someone who has, you know, great product knowledge. They spend a lot of time out with customers, they're going to strategic meetings in the company. Right. They're someone who's very high up in the product food chain. It's an anti pattern though, because very quickly the team loses confidence in that product. Proxy product owner. Right. They realize that, oh well, whatever guidance they give us, you know, might change without notice. And oftentimes that proxy product owner doesn't feel fully empowered to make decisions and so they'll delay things because they're like, oh, I have to go check with the quote unquote real product owner. And so we end up with this game of telephone, right? That takes a long time. And so in those situations where we have the disempowered proxy product owner, there's like one of two interventions that seem to work. Intervention number one is empower that person, make them the product owner, right? And then that other person who is the quote unquote real product owner, they become a very important stakeholder, right? There's someone whose opinion matters a lot. We want to keep them happy, we want to engage with them as frequently as we can. But ultimately it's our, our product owner, right? The person who formerly was the proxy who is making the call, who is empowered to make the call. And, you know, things start to work a lot better. The other way you can go with that one is to say, okay, that person, that, you know, powerful, high up person, they're going to come and be the team's product owner, right? We're going to, you know, not have this proxy anymore. In order to do this though, they're going to have to spend more time with the team. And that means that they'll be spending a little less time with customers. And in strategic meetings and things like that, their understanding of the market will be degraded, right. Because they're not spending as much time with those people. However, their influence over the product will be greatly increased. And so ultimately we're going to be building a better product. So either of these two interventions I have witnessed work really well. But the proxy product owner caught in the middle, that one rarely works well.