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Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
The Three Qualities That Separate Great Product Owners From Those Who Just Drop Tickets | Mukhtar Kadiri
00:12:54
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Hey there, Agile adventurer, just a quick question. What if for the price of a fancy coffee or half a pizza, you could unlock over 700 hours of the best agile content on the planet? That's audio, video, E courses, books, presentations, all that you can think of. But you can also join live calls with world class practitioners and hang out in a flame war free and AI slop clean slack with the sharpest minds in the game. Oh, and yes, you get direct access to me, Vasko, your Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. No, this is not a drill. It's this Scrum Master Toolbox membership. And it's your unfair advantage in the Agile world. So if you want to know more, go check out scrummastertoolbox.org membership. That's scrummastertoolbox.org Membership. And check out all the goodies we have for you. Do it now. But if you're not doing it now, let's listen to the podcast.
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B
Hello everybody. Welcome to our Friday DGIF episode and of course also product owner this week with Mukhtar Kadiri. Hey Mukhtar, welcome back.
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C
Thank you. Asgo.
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B
So it's product owner episode and product owner really is a key role in most projects that develop software these days. It's a role that kind of has evolved to mean a lot more than just business analyst. I don't know, because of your project management background, probably business analyst is the most common role. I don't know actually that's a question.
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C
Yeah, no, I think it's all of the above because I was also a business analyst and I've also actually even worked as a product manager. Product owner. Product manager. But yeah, I've worked with, as a program manager, I've worked with, you know, bas, Scrum masters, Product owners. Product managers.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And in some companies they're called technical analysts or technical product owners. There's all kinds of names. But we know what we are talking about. It's this person who helps the team orient themselves around what needs to be done with what priority. So we want you to explain to us some of those patterns. But we start with an anti pattern. So Mukhtar share with us potentially the worst product owner anti pattern you've witnessed in your career.
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C
Well, so, so I think one of them is the. Not owning the backlog. So I think somebody needs to own the backlog and I'm of the school of thought that it should be product that should own the backlog. So. And a lot of times like I've been in a sit situations whereby and by the way. So I mean I'm using like product managers, product owners. I'm using them, you know, because there's overlap and I think people use them interchangeably. But in this discussion I'm using product, you know, product managers, product owners together. So yeah, so not owning the backlog. And I've seen situations whereby if you don't have a strong product person, engineering just because like things need to be done so a strong engineering person just takes over the backlog or you know, engineering just take. Because they don't have a strong product person. But, but that is dangerous because it's product that is the eyes or they are the representative of the customers. They actually, you know, they, they have customer intimacy. So you can't you know, have engineering like deciding priorities and all of that. So yeah, so I, I've seen that a lot and that tends to lead to a lot of trouble. Where engineering is like, they develop, engineering develops this beautiful solution but it's not really producing business value. So I would say that that's one that I have one of the anti patterns that I've seen.
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B
Yeah. And when you think about that like this product owner not owning the backlog, not representing the customer, how do you think we can help this product owners? And of course I'm assuming the product owners in this case can be helped. There are cases which, in which they can't. But in those cases where you've been able to work and productively transform the collaboration between yourself or the team and this product owner, what are the things that have worked?
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C
Yeah, So I think there are a couple of, of things. Right. So number one, it could be just the level of maturity of the, of the product person. So you know, pairing that person with a more senior product person to sort of mentor and coach them, that can help. And I think number two, it could also be, you know, there is, it's not easy. You don't have many people that, that can translate between the business or what the customer needs and the technical. Right. Because like engineering they need to be able to meet product at some point and products in order to, you need to be a partner to engineering and that requires a certain level of understanding, technical understanding. Right. So for some people it's difficult or maybe they haven't quite built that skill yet. Right. So I would say, you know, one of them is just, you know, just beefing up your technical knowledge and then another one is just like there is just a rift between engineering and product. Like there is this, you know, there's just that weird thing like, it's just a tension between engineering and product. Engineering feels like product, they don't get it and vice versa. You know, product feels like engineering. They just want to do their own thing. Right. So, you know, so, yeah, these are some of the things I think. You know, number one, it could be mentorship. Number two, it's just maybe increasing the knowledge, technical knowledge of the product owner. And number three, is just building that, closing that relationship between product and engineering. Yeah.
- [06:09]
B
And especially if we want to create that deeper, I guess, identification with the product through sharing technical knowledge or more. I think that the whole idea of having kind of a counterpart within the team, kind of the body, the product owner, buddy, I think that might be one pattern that might work because we need to somehow bring them in to the team. Because there's a lot of work that product needs to do with the team. And I'm understanding there could be multiple teams, of course, and that makes it harder. But that participation of the product person, in this case product owner in the team is very important for the team also to feel allegiance to the product. Otherwise they'll just feel, oh, we have this person who doesn't understand the product trying to tell us what to do. And no matter what we tell them, they will never understand what we say, so why should we even try?
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A
Right.
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B
Like, and they become what we call task drones, order takers. Right, right.
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C
No, and just on that point, like, the product owner is actually a part of the team. Right. You cannot have a complete team otherwise you're just somebody who drops tickets for people to do. Like, so you need to be a part. And I think the problem is also when, I mean, they're technically a part of the team, but the team doesn't feel like they're part of the team. Right. So that needs to be. That gap needs to be sort of closed. Right. Where it's like they're actually a part of the team.
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B
Yeah, absolutely. Very well said. Okay. But there aren't only bad anti patterns, there are also amazing product owners out there who do an excellent job at helping the teams and the project succeed. So share with us, Mukhtar, the best product owner you've ever worked with. How did they work?
- [07:50]
C
Yeah. So one person comes to mind. And so I'm going to just describe this person's quality. So this person he called, he could hold his own at any level of the organization, with executives, with, you know, engineering of product leadership and with the team. Right. So he was very comfortable at, you know, whether the strategic level or the tactical. So that was, that was one quality that I really admired. And then number two, this person's. This person had vast knowledge. Right. So he wasn't necessarily a specialist per se, but he could have intelligent conversations with different parties, be it marketing, go to market, customer success, engineering. He could have intelligent conversation with anybody. Right. So that was also something that I noticed with that person. And then the other thing was that this person was decisive, you know, because a lot of times there's a lot of ambiguity and a lot of people are just, they're looking for direction. Right. And because a lot of times with these projects, like you've never done it before and they need somebody that just, you know, it might be wrong, but let's just move in a direction. Let's find out, you know.
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B
Yeah, and let's find out early enough. Right?
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C
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So. So these are some of the qualities that I, that I really, you know, that I really liked and I, that I really liked in this present. You know, just thinking about it now, I think other product people that I've seen that have really respected, they have this quality of, you know, like they can operate at any level and they are decisive and, you know, they have knowledge where they have credibility with almost anybody that they speak to.
- [09:42]
B
Yeah, absolutely. The three great. The three qualities of a great product owner. So, Mukhtar, thank you for sharing that with us. Us. We're almost at the end of our week together, but before we go, where can people find out more about you and the work that you're doing?
- [09:56]
C
Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn, so you can just search for me on LinkedIn. Mukhtar Kadiri and I share. I do posts almost every day, so I share stuff on how to help PMs land high paying PM roles. So, you know, feel free to connect with me or, you know, follow and. Yeah, send me a message.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
We'll put the link to Mukhtar's LinkedIn page in the show notes, make sure every one of you knows where to find him and why not ask a few follow up questions? That's how we learn as a community. Mukhtar, thank you very much and thank you for your generosity with your time and your knowledge.
- [10:33]
C
And thank you for having me. Bashko, this was fun.
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A
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