Why Saying Yes to Every Stakeholder Request Is the Fastest Way to Fail as a Product Owner | Njegos Ilic

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Overview

Episode Title: Why Saying Yes to Every Stakeholder Request Is the Fastest Way to Fail as a Product Owner
Podcast: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Njegos Ilic, Product Manager/Owner
Date: May 25, 2026

This episode centers on a core challenge for Product Owners: the tendency to say "yes" to every stakeholder request and why that pattern leads not to success, but to rapid failure. The conversation dives into Njegos Ilic’s personal journey and early career mistakes, highlighting how important it is for product owners to set boundaries, handle stakeholder dynamics, and embrace failure as a vital learning loop.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Njegos’s Origin Story: From Economics to Agile Product Roles

• Background: Njegos started his career in economics, working as a regulatory officer in a Bosnian power company.
• Career Change: With encouragement from his wife (a software engineer), he pivoted to IT, motivated by the sector’s growth and opportunities.
• Learning Agile: He rapidly absorbed agile concepts, reading several foundational books in a month.
  “I started reading, you know, about agile in general... I think I read like in one month, like three or four books. It was really fast.” (02:03 – 03:20)
• Entry Path: He landed a product owner role in a startup despite initially aiming to be a Scrum Master.

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2. The Classic Product Owner Failure: Saying Yes to Everything

• Disconnect from the Team: Njegos describes feeling disempowered, unable to truly influence product direction despite formal titles.
  “If you are completely detached from the team... you’re not making the shots. And it’s really hard to, you know, operate and navigate in that environment.” (04:49 – 05:21)
• People-Pleasing Trap: The root cause? Wanting to fit in, please stakeholders (often founders or key leaders), and avoid conflict in high-pressure startup settings. “To be honest... mostly it was, you know, trying to fit in... especially in the startup environment where basically you don’t have that much, you know, you’re not that free to operate as you wish.” (07:23 – 07:48)
• Rigged Game: Founders are typically strong personalities who expect quick results and compliance. “In some of these environments, basically the game is rigged because they’re strong personalities... but you know, at the end of the day, you don’t have a magic stick...” (08:00 – 08:25)

Key Lesson:

• “If you don’t know how to say no and if you don’t know the product... it’s really, you know, around every corner there is a, you can fail.” (06:13 – 06:34)

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3. The Value of Failing and Learning Loops

• Embracing Failure: Rather than avoid mistakes, Njegos argues that failing is the cheapest and most effective way to learn.
  • Example: Learning to walk by stumbling as a child (09:16–09:40).
• Lean Feedback Mindset: Treat failures as feedback loops for personal and process improvement. “Just use this as a feedback loop... it’s actually the cheapest place to learn because you already fail.” (10:14 – 10:48)
• Universal Challenges: No work environment is immune to strong personalities or recurring patterns; learning how to respond is more useful than company-hopping. “If you think if just by changing company will avoid the problems, you’re really wrong because you will get that personality again.” (11:12 – 11:26)

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4. Advice for Product Owners and Scrum Masters

• Reflection: After a failure, don’t dwell—analyze what happened, what could have changed, and prepare for similar future situations.
• Setting Expectations: Practice saying “no” and gain enough knowledge of your product and domain to make decisions confidently.
  • Advice transcends roles; Scrum Masters and POs will always face pushy personalities and must own their response strategies.
• Quote:
  “What you can change is actually your approach to that problem further on in the future when you again stumble upon it.” (10:50 – 11:10)
  “You need to find a way to learn how to handle those situations.” (11:30 – 11:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Fitting In:
  “You try to fit in, you’re trying to please at least these big heads, especially in the startup environment...” – Njegos Ilic (07:23)

• On The Necessity of Failing:
  “Listen, it’s that simple… you cannot expect from the kids to learn how to walk or run and not stumble or fail… The same concept can be applied to anything that we work.” – Njegos Ilic (09:16)

• On the Unavoidable Nature of Personality Clashes:
  “If you think just by changing company will avoid the problems, you’re really wrong because you will get that personality again.” – Njegos Ilic (11:12)

• Host Reflection:
  “We can't avoid it. Sooner or later everyone makes mistakes... What did I do? What should have been different? What was not possible to be different?” – Vasco Duarte (11:47)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:24 – 03:20: Njegos shares his origin story and career pivot into Agile
• 04:49 – 06:34: Major failure: saying yes to all stakeholders and its fallout
• 07:23 – 08:25: Njegos explains why he said yes, citing cultural pressures and strong personalities
• 09:16 – 10:14: Embracing mistakes as a growth mechanism
• 10:14 – 11:38: Practical advice for Product Owners and dealing with recurring personality challenges
• 11:47 – 12:17: Reflections on the necessity of self-inquiry after failure

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Conclusion

This episode is an honest exploration of the all-too-common pitfall for Product Owners: becoming order-takers and losing sight of product strategy under stakeholder pressure. Njegos Ilic’s candid recount of his own missteps—and the insights drawn from them—underscores the necessity of assertiveness, product knowledge, and a learning stance. His practical, lean-inspired advice serves as a vital reminder: failure is not only inevitable, it’s invaluable.

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Transcript

[Vasco]

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, let's listen to the podcast.

[Podcast Host]

Hello everybody. Welcome to one more week of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. And this week we're actually taking the product owner perspective with our guest, Niegos Illich. Hey Niegos, welcome to the show.

[Niegos Illich]

Hello Vasco. Thanks for having me.

[Podcast Host]

Absolutely. So Niegos is a motivated and forward thinking product manager and occasionally also project manager. He'll tell us more about that. With experience in fast paced SaaS environments, he empowers teams through leadership and guidance across product development. With a lean mindset, he simplifies complexity, delivers in small testable increments, and leverages rapid feedback loops to prioritize outcomes over output. So Miegos, that was a short intro. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and how did you end up becoming a product owner?

[Niegos Illich]

So basically it's a long story short, it was like a mutual decision with me and my wife because like 10 years ago when I, when I met her actually, because I started actually as my primary like degree, university, bachelor's degree was in economics. So I was working like regulatory officer in one big power plant company actually in Bosnia. Bosnia. And then I was a little bit bored, to be honest. And at that time, 10 years ago I met my wife and she's actually software engineer. And I was basically trying to see, hey, what, what I could do, how I can do something else, you know. And then basically it was her advice, hey, you should, you should move in it. And back then it was really blooming, it was really, it was crazy. At least in Balkans especially probably in the rest of the world as well. And, and that's how it Started actually, like our mutual friend handed over to me like, I don't know, like a couple of really long books. And I started reading, you know, about agile in general, about Scrum, about stuff. And I think I read like in one month, like three or four books. It was really fast. And this guy, he was like, yeah, I never saw someone who is, you know, who read that many books in this short of time and, you know, absorb or digest these concepts. And that way at that time, actually I knew that I might have a chance actually to switch, to make this career switch. And basically I just tried to, you know, to check my, you know, to see some opportunities, job ads and stuff. And basically there was one startup they hired actually for product owner. And I just applied and I got the job. And that's basically how, how it started for me. Even though in the beginning I was more focused, you know, I was trying to get maybe a Scrum Master role back then, of course, but, but that's how it started, actually.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, it can't, it can't harm to be a Scrum Master before a product owner, but it's perfectly fine to go straight to the product owner role. But one thing that probably you went through, or at least later on for sure, is of course, the difficult moment, the story of failure. Niegos. Today's Monday, Fail Monday, as we call it here on the podcast. So let's share one of those stories. We'll talk about what you learned, the insights and all of that later on. But tell us that story of failure as a product owner.

[Niegos Illich]

As a product owner. So I don't know, for me, like, as a product owner, it's connected also, I would say also to the Scrum Master and to the team. But the biggest failure is, you know, trying to get some, some results and stuff. If you are completely detached from the team. And I would say the whole team is not that empowered, even though you're, you know, using those terms. Okay, he's a product owner, we have a Scrum Master. But at the end of the day, you know, you're not making the shots. And it's really hard to, you know, operate and navigate in that environment. And then, you know, you're trying, you're trying to do your best, you know, to organize as good as you can. But at the end of the day, it's really hard to navigate through that extra environment. But if I need to, you know, not to make it, you know, two weeks, if I make it, if I have to make just one, you know, example, I would Say it's, you know, trying to basically build everything that the stakeholder is asking from you. And I know it's a common theme with the product.

[Podcast Host]

You've heard many times that same anti pattern here on the podcast.

[Niegos Illich]

Exactly. But I think everything comes up at the end of the day to the basics. I think if you, if you don't know how to say no and if you don't know the product, that's, that's also really, really important thing to know the industry and the product, that it's really, you know, around every corner there is a, you know, you can fail.

[Podcast Host]

So, so tell us a little bit more about that because one thing is to think about, okay, yeah, we ended up doing everything that the stakeholders asked for, which is okay, that's, that's what happened.

[Vasco]

Right?

[Podcast Host]

Like, you can't argue with that. But that's only really the sur of what happened. We're interested in the. What's going on underneath that surface.

[Vasco]

What was your thinking process like?

[Podcast Host]

What, what drove you to eventually say yes to everything the stakeholders gave you? Because, you know, many of our listeners are scrum masters, so they are on the other side of the product owner wall, right? Like, they're looking at the product owners saying yes to everything that is coming their way. So what drove you, Niegos, to say yes to all the requests that were coming in?

[Niegos Illich]

To be honest, like in the beginning of my career, mostly it was, you know, trying to fit in. You know, you try to fit in, you're trying to please at least these, you know, big, big, you know, big heads, especially in the startup environment where basically you don't have that much, you know, you're not, you're not that free to operate as you wish to make the shots. So.

[Podcast Host]

And typically working with strong personalities, right, like, founders are easily, are usually driven people who want to get things done and want people to say yes to them.

[Niegos Illich]

But I, but I would say that in some of these environment, basically the game is rigged because they're strong personalities, they want to get things done. But you know, at the end of the day, you don't have a magic stick, you know, and it's really hard actually to deliver the result if you cannot make, you know, if you cannot say no or if you cannot pivot with some really important decisions. So that's why I think it's really good actually for the starting of the career to be in those environments, even though you will fail. I think failing is really one of the most important steps in learning, actually. We will come to that probably in some later in the, you know, with your questions. But I think for someone who is starting or who is a media, I don't know how to call these roles, but it's really important to be in those kind of situations because then it will empower you later on to set the expectation right with the.

[Podcast Host]

That's actually a very interesting perspective. So I, if I understand you right, what you're saying is don't try to avoid failures too hard because you might actually prevent yourself from learning some important lessons.

[Niegos Illich]

Yeah, listen, it's that simple. Like I will just use really common example. I have kids like you cannot expect from the kids to, to learn how to, you know, walk or run and, you know, they will not stumble or fail someone like, you know, it's just a process of growing and I think the same concept can be applied of any, anything that we work. So it's really that simple. But it's really hard to, you know, to comprehend that fully because one is to know things in theory and the other thing is actually, you know, so

[Podcast Host]

what, what advice do you have for product owners out there who are listening to us right now, probably making the exact same mistake you did back then and probably feeling bad about it as well. Right. So what words of, what wise words of advice do you have for product owners out there who are exactly right now in that position?

[Niegos Illich]

I would make it again, really simple. Just use this as a, as a, as a feedback loop. Like I'm really coming from, from this lean perspective, you know, with the product you always try to build at first to understand the problem, then to build something in order so you can, you know, measure so you can learn. The same applies here. This is just a feedback loop like, like one, one feedback loop for you. And it's actually the cheapest place to learn because you already fail. You cannot make it, you know, different or, you know, yeah, it's there, it's

[Podcast Host]

part of the, the history already.

[Niegos Illich]

Exactly. But what you can change is actually your approach to that problem further on in the future when you again stumble upon it. Also working with the, I don't know, maybe also advice for, I don't know, the same concept with the Scrum Masters, for example. I worked in a lot of companies, a lot of startups actually. At the end of the day I spoke with one of my friends and he was like, yeah, at the end of the day you always handle with the same kinds of personalities or similar personalities. And if you think if just by changing company will avoid the problems, you're really wrong because you will get that personality again. So you need to find a way to learn how to handle those situations. So that's basically, in a nutshell, what I believe and that's what's my experience. Maybe there is something else. But yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And I think this is actually very wise because we can't avoid it. Sooner or later everyone makes mistakes. And to have that perspective and to want to learn and then actually doing the work of learning. What did I do? What should have been different? What was not possible to be different? Why not? All of that stuff is really important reflection. So thank you very much for bringing that story to us, Niegos.

[Niegos Illich]

Thank you for asking.

[Vasco]

Alright, I hope you liked this episode, but before you hit next episode, here's the deal.

[Podcast Host]

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[Vasco]

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[Podcast Host]

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