The Agile Product Owner: Beyond the Books and Classrooms

As organizations embark on agile transformation, many traditional project managers or business and technical leads are thrown into the Product Owner role after reading a book or two and, perhaps a few days of CSPO training. In the midst of changing environments, conflicting mindsets, and other change-related issues, they are expected to start operating within a Scrum team. Alicia Cyrus compares the responsibilities of product ownership and traditional project management—similar roles, same goal of achieving working software (or services) and productive teams, but very different approaches. Alicia explores how product owners should focus on the “means to the end”—organizing a strong backlog and eliciting solid requirements while assuming ownership of the relationship with their team. Product owners need to help their team build trust and find their best approach to achieve successful delivery. Alicia offers experience-based techniques for positively influencing the team’s continuous improvement and taking collaboration to the next level, identifying obstacles, and managing them head-on to prevent roadblocks to the team’s motivation and performance.