Why Measuring Your Product Bets Is the Key to Product Owner Success | Njegos Ilic

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Niegos Illich, Product Owner
Episode Title: Why Measuring Your Product Bets Is the Key to Product Owner Success
Date: May 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this Success Thursday episode, Vasco Duarte sits down with experienced Product Owner Niegos Illich to delve into what defines success for Product Owners. Their discussion emphasizes the critical importance of measuring product bets, adapting approaches to different company environments, and fostering a culture of learning and humility within teams. Listeners gain actionable advice for Product Owners navigating complex, sometimes unmeasurable contexts, plus tips for running more effective retrospectives and collaborating closely with their teams.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Retrospective Formats and Team Environment

• Flexibility over Templates:
  Niegos shares that he doesn’t have a strong preference for any particular retrospective format, preferring sessions to be relaxed yet purposeful.
  • "I don't have any preference, to be honest...just environment where we can actually just review the current sprint, trying to see how much we accomplished, trying to see what went really simple. Right. I know this is really cliche but what went good, what went wrong, what we can do to improve."
    (Niegos Illich, 01:38)
• Casual, Human-Centric Start:
  Both agree that starting with a relaxing exercise or casual check-in supports creativity and learning.
  • "If we're always like machines, going forward, we're not going to be very creative or even very patient with each other."
    (Vasco Duarte, 02:50)
• Adapting to Team Dynamics:
  Niegos notes that some teams dislike icebreakers, considering them "childish," while others find them valuable. The key is "sensing the pulse of the team."
  • "It's just trying to sense the pulse of the team. And I think that's really important caveat for every successful Scrum master or a leader in the team."
    (Niegos Illich, 03:25)

2. Defining Product Owner Success

• Setting Expectations & Adapting to Company Context

  • Success starts with understanding the company mindset: project-oriented vs. product-oriented, and adapting your approach accordingly.
    (Niegos Illich, 04:53)

• The Central Role of Measurement

  • The ability to measure the features (or "product bets") one releases is key. Without data, decision-making becomes reactive and opinion-driven.
  • "If you cannot do that, I think you can do whatever you like, but...you will just be depending on the different opinions who is...screaming the loudest...which is not a good thing in a, you know, working long term."
    (Niegos Illich, 06:05)

• Deep Industry & Product Knowledge

  • Success requires understanding the industry, keeping current as things evolve, and finding personal systems (mind mapping, documentation) to manage information.
  • "Trying to...document things, how to create different ways to, you know, map out, to use these mind mappings tools, whatever, just in order, you know, so it will help me, you know, to remember the things that there are somewhere in my head."
    (Niegos Illich, 07:42)

• Humility and Embracing Mistakes

  • Building a "horizontal culture"—a non-hierarchical, safe space for challenge and error—improves collaboration and sustainable progress.
  • "You need to be...able to put...some horizontal culture with the team, with the stakeholders when you can be challenged, you know, and where you can make mistakes and...admit those mistakes."
    (Niegos Illich, 08:08)

Summary Tip

Covering measurement, industry knowledge, and humility helps Product Owners thrive, even in uncertain or rapidly changing environments.
(Paraphrased from Niegos Illich, ~08:33)

3. Measuring Product Bets in Difficult Environments

• User Interviews as a Measurement Proxy
  • When quantitative metrics aren't available, user interviews become invaluable for gathering feedback—but with limitations.
  • "In those kind of situations, I think user interviews are really powerful...But at the end of the day this is still limited...the real deal is insights."
    (Niegos Illich, 09:17)
• The Power of Analytics Tools
  • Heatmaps, Mixpanel, and similar tools allow PO’s to fact-check opinions and requests, moving from anecdote to evidence-based decisions.
    (Niegos Illich, 09:44)
• Team Involvement in User Research
  • Bringing developers, designers, and ideally the entire team into user interviews or usability tests fosters empathy and practical, user-centric design.
  • "It's really powerful actually to invite...leads from the development or...the full team...because it helps the team to connect to real world problems."
    (Niegos Illich, 10:36)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On adapting retrospectives to team needs:
  "There is no right and wrong...It's just trying to sense the pulse of the team."
  (Niegos Illich, 03:25)

• On PO success being tied to measuring outcomes:
  "Being able to measure what you build. If you cannot do that...you'll just be depending on the different opinions who is...screaming the loudest."
  (Niegos Illich, 06:05)

• On humility in leadership:
  "You need to be...able to put...some horizontal culture with the team, with the stakeholders when you can be challenged, you know, and where you can make mistakes and...admit those mistakes."
  (Niegos Illich, 08:08)

• On involving the whole team in user research:
  "It helps the team to connect to real world problems..."
  (Niegos Illich, 10:36)

• Host’s pragmatic advice about user interviews:
  "User interviews are not as easy as they sound. So it's good to read a little bit before you go and start running the first user interview."
  (Vasco Duarte, 10:15)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:26 – 04:22
  Discussion on retrospective formats, team dynamics, and adapting to team personalities.
• 04:26 – 08:43
  Defining product owner success: measurement, industry knowledge, humility.
• 08:43 – 11:10
  How to measure product bets in difficult environments, proxies for measurement, and involving the team in user feedback.

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Resources Mentioned

• The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick (User interview techniques book) (10:15)
• Shifting from Product to People – Michael Dougherty & Pete Oliver Kruger (User research/fostering team empathy) (11:10)

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Episode Takeaways

• Adapt your retrospectives to your team’s preferences; casual environments foster creativity.
• A Product Owner’s core job is to create ways to measure the impact of each release or initiative (“product bet”), even when it’s uncomfortable or difficult.
• In environments where measurement is hard, use user interviews and feedback—being aware of their limits—and expose the whole team to user needs to build empathy.
• Continual learning, humility, and openness to challenge are essential traits for Product Owners who want to navigate complex adaptive environments.

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This summary aims to capture the depth and tone of the discussion, providing a thorough guide for listeners and non-listeners alike on how Product Owners can define and pursue real success.

Transcript

[Vasco Duarte]

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 warfree 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 the 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,

[Host / Interviewer]

let's listen to the podcast. Hello everybody. Welcome to our success Thursday this week dedicated to the product owner. So we'll talk about product owner success with Niegos Illich. Hey Niegos, welcome back.

[Niegos Illich]

Hey Vaskov, thanks for having me again.

[Host / Interviewer]

Absolutely, absolutely. Before we dive into the success question, Niegos, share with us from your product owner perspective, what's your favorite agile retrospective format and why?

[Niegos Illich]

Like to be honest, I really don't have really any special format like from there is a lot of templates that I've seen Scrum Masters are using. I really like from the perspective to be a little bit, you have part, but it's a little bit, a little bit casual so people can, I don't know, relax, they can learn about each other. Just know that not everything is business as usual. That's I think really important part of the retro. But other than that like just environment where we can actually just review the current sprint, trying to see how much we accomplished, trying to see what went really simple. Right. I know this is really cliche but what went good, what went wrong, what we can do to improve. It doesn't have to be in that order or with that questions, but somehow we need to cover those, those topics and whatever, you know, the team feels, or Scrum Master in this case feels that works the best for the team. I'm, I'm totally open and I'm really, I don't have any preference to be honest.

[Host / Interviewer]

Absolutely. And of course that beginning of the retro, starting with the relaxing exercise so that not everything feels like business as usual or also opens us to think differently about what we could have learned from the last sprint. And I really like that approach because it also acknowledges, it recognizes that, hey, we're humans here, right? If we're always like machines, going forward, we're not going to be very creative or even very patient with each other. Which turns out is not a very good learning environment either.

[Niegos Illich]

Exactly. And getting back to the topic of the favorite format, I will just share you interesting also feedback from couple of, you know, teams that I was working with. So for example, I don't know this, this, this, you know, icebreakers, different formats. I will tell you for the fact a couple of teams that I worked with, the feedback from developers was, hey, this is childish. You know, can we just get to the point? This is, you know, this is a waste of time and you know, it's just the way it is for, for certain type of people. But for the other people, I can tell you, and for the other teams, you know, it was really relaxing and you could feel it was basically something that they needed. So that's why there is no right and wrong in here. It's just trying to sense like, you know, the pulse of the team. And I think that's really important caveat for every successful Scrum master or a leader in the team sense.

[Host / Interviewer]

The pulse of the team, the vibe.

[Niegos Illich]

Exactly.

[Host / Interviewer]

All right, and now we go to the big question of the week. Of course, the success question. So Niegos, you've been a product owner for a while with successes and failures. We talked about one on Monday as well. Like everybody, that's how it goes. Anyway, you have reflected and we would like to know what does success mean for you as a product owner.

[Niegos Illich]

So for me, like, personally, I think in order for me to be successful as a product owner, there are a lot of things, of course, but how I see it, and I'm getting back again to some of the things that we already kind of touched in the previous conversations, but basically setting up the first thing is to setting up the expectation, right? You know, trying to see, hey, what is the type of the company I'm working with? You know, is it a project oriented mindset, Product oriented mindset and then depend or you know, depending on the answer on that question and trying to basically adapt. But at the end of the day, for me as a product owner, I think the most important thing is to, to have a, to have a, you know, means to measure the features that I'm or the product bets. So to say that I'm releasing because if I cannot do that, it's really hard to learn it's really hard to make important decisions and I will not lie to you like I worked in those environments and partially even today I'm working like that because with some company it's really hard to set up, you know, you know, these measurement points with the product, it has to do a little bit with the industry, it has to do a little bit with the processes, with the history. You know, everyone has its, you know, sad story, so to say. But, but that, that's really important part of, of the job like being able to measure what you build. If you cannot do that, I think you can, you can do whatever you like, but it will be really, you will just be depending on the different opinions who is, you know, screaming the loudest, you know, and trying basically just to use your gut feeling, which is not a good thing in a, you know, working long term. The other thing that, that is if we put this aside and I think really important thing to, to, you know, to being a successful product owner is knowing the industry, you know, knowing the industry, trying to, to learn about the product and everything. And especially if you're working in fast paced environment when things where things constantly change, it can be challenging. I'm not lied to you. So what I'm trying to do, I'm trying to basically to find a ways, you know, how to document things, how to create different ways to, you know, map out, to use these mind mappings tools, whatever, just in order, you know, so it will help me, you know, to remember the things that there are somewhere in my head. I think that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's another thing. And maybe at the end of the day, I think one really important thing is to have this, you know, sense to be, to be humble, you know, because you need to be, you know, able to put, you know, some, some horizontal culture with the team, with the stakeholders when you can be challenged, you know, and where you can make mistakes and very, you know, you don't feel pressured or, you know, I don't know how to, how to, how to put it into the words. But basically you have to be able actually to make mistakes and to be humble to admit those mistakes. Otherw wise it's really hard to work in those environments because every, you know, every mistake is somehow, you know, you feel threatened, you're trying to work around something. So if you, I don't know in simple words, if you can cover those three things in my home, in my opinion, I, I think it will, it can help you a lot to success as a product.

[Host / Interviewer]

So there's one, one of the topics you mentioned which I think is very important, the idea of measuring the success of your product bets. And you mentioned something that I want to dig into a little bit more. You said that in some environments, if you will, it's difficult to set up the metrics or whatever, analytics, whatever that may be to measure product bets. So for you as a product owner, when you are in those environments, what other tools do you use to try to approximate that measurement of product bets?

[Niegos Illich]

I think in those kind of situations, I think user interviews are really powerful. Like that's maybe the most obvious thing to do actually to try to use these user interviews and try to collect as much as feedback as you can. But at the end of the day this is still limited. That's just my opinion because this is still like opinions that you're getting from the different people, but the real deal is insights. And once you have some kind of measurements, I don't know, with Heat, with Mix Panel, any of these tools that you can actually, you know, have, have with your product, then actually you can actually check those opinions. You can, you can actually fact check any requests that you are getting from different, I don't know, support tickets from different stakeholders. And that's really helping. But if I had to pick one, I think user interviews are really good because it will give you a lot of feedback.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, absolutely. And we'll put the link in the show notes to one of the most common, let's call it User Interview Bible. It's a very short book. It's called the Mum Test that everybody should read because user interviews are not as easy as they sound. So it's good to read a little bit before you go and start running the first user interview.

[Niegos Illich]

And I think it's really powerful actually to invite like at least I mentioned, you know, leads from the development or of course product designers should be always by default there, but also the full team, that, that's really, that's really powerful I think because it helps the team to connect to real world problems actually. And then, then, then once we discuss anything on the refinement or any, any other meeting, it's much easier for them to connect which is really, I think something that a lot of themes are missing.

[Host / Interviewer]

Absolutely great point. Right. Like involve the whole team. Michael Dougherty and Pete Oliver Kruger in their book Shifting from Product to People, they talk about what they call usability theater, which is basically exposing the whole team to usability tests or user interviews and getting the whole team to listen to the user so that they kind of absorb the user's perspective, which will then, we hope, positively affect how they develop the product every day. Awesome. Thank you for sharing that with us, Niegos.

[Niegos Illich]

It's a little bit general, maybe because I'm thinking on the fly, but I hope it's good enough content for you.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

[Vasco Duarte]

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[Host / Interviewer]

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[Vasco Duarte]

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[Host / Interviewer]

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