Agile + DevOps West 2020 Concurrent Session : Saying Yes for All the Wrong Reasons

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Wednesday, June 10, 2020 - 11:45am to 12:45pm

Saying Yes for All the Wrong Reasons

Part of a product owner’s job is to say no to requests when appropriate. But all too often, product owners will say yes anyway. Why is this? In this interactive session, we will discuss the three main responsibilities of a product owner, dig into the reasons product owners say yes to a request they should say no to, and discuss ways you can help your product owner overcome these challenges. You’ll need to bring a few sheets of blank paper to work on during the session so we can discuss the consequences of product owners saying yes when they should say no. Work in groups to identify the reasons behind these decisions, and brainstorm how you can counter them. You will leave with a better understanding of the challenges product owners face when saying no, along with four questions you can ask yourself when faced with a request that will help you determine if you should say yes or no.

Elizabeth Gattra
World Wide Technology

Liz Gattra is currently the director of Product Ownership at World Wide Technology - Application Services. Prior to this, she held various roles including IT manager, agile coach, scrum master, and agile business analyst. Liz has championed product ownership on multiple internal and client teams. She successfully led the agile transformation at her last company, where she worked closely with the business to build their product owner role. As part of her current role, Liz has been responsible for building the product ownership practice in Application Services at World Wide Technology and has training both internal and client product owners and agile business analysts in product ownership and helped them successfully define and deliver valuable software products. Liz holds a Master’s in Biology and Biomedical Sciences from Washington University - St. Louis and has worked in IT for almost 20 years at multiple companies across multiple industries.