Tag Archives: scrum

The Agile Product Owner Responsibilities

| March 24, 2016

In theory, the product owner’s responsibilities are simple: The individual should maximise the value the product creates according to the Scrum Guide. But what does this mean in practice? In reality, the application of the product owner role varies greatly, as products and organisations differ. But my experience shows that there are two key factors that determine the duties of a product owner: the scope and the depth of ownership. This blog post discusses these two factors to help you apply the role successfully.

Getting Stakeholder Engagement Right

| November 17, 2015

Being a successful product manager or product owner requires more than building a product with the right user experience (UX) and features. If the stakeholders don’t support your product, then it will be difficult to achieve success. It is therefore important to engage the right stakeholders and to work with them in the right way. This post discusses a proven technique to analyse stakeholders, the power-interest grid, and it shares my recommendations for engaging with different stakeholder groups in the right way.

How Detailed should the Product Backlog be?

| July 14, 2015

The product backlog is a great tool. But using it effectively can be difficult. One of the challenges is to get the level of detail right. An overly detailed backlog is unwieldy and hard to manage. But a product backlog that is too coarse-grained is also not helpful: It provides too little guidance for the development team. This post helps you strike the right balance between too much and too little detail. It shows you how determine the right amount of detail for your product backlog.

Size Matters: Big vs. Small Product Owner

| June 23, 2015

Product owners come in different shapes and sizes. That’s only natural: The application of the role varies depending on the product and the company. Being a product owner of a brand-new product in a startup differs from looking after a mature offering in a large enterprise. But there are two common types: big and small product owners. Which one are you? And is your product ownership level right?

The Product Owner’s Checklist for the First Sprint

| December 17, 2014

Scrum is a popular agile framework for developing a product with the right features and the right technologies. Unfortunately, it does not state the prerequisites for kicking off a Scrum project and for starting the first sprint. As a consequence, I find it not uncommon that product managers and product owners are unsure about the work they should do prior to the first sprint. This post offers a checklist to help you do the right upfront product management work.

The Product Owner’s Guide to the Sprint Retrospective

| June 17, 2014

The sprint retrospective is a key mechanism in Scrum to improve the way people work. This article shares my tips on how you can use the meeting as the person in charge of the product to strengthen connections and improve the work.

How to Choose the Right Product Validation Technique in Scrum

| April 23, 2014

Scrum employs the product demo as its default technique to understand if the right product with the right features is developed. While a product demo can be very effective, it can also be limiting. Like any research and validation technique, demoes have their strengths and weaknesses. This article provides an overview of alternative validation methods so you can choose the one that is best suited for your product.

A Template for Formulating Great Sprint Goals

| March 11, 2014

Sprint goals can guide the work of the development team and describe the desired outcome of a sprint. As useful as they are, sprint goals are not always correctly applied: They often reiterate the user stories to be implemented rather than the reason for running the sprint. This article introduces my sprint goal template and it explains how you can apply it to take full advantage of sprint goals .

Succeeding with Innovation and Maintenance

| August 6, 2013

Keeping a product successful can be tricky: New features have to be developed to ensure that the product stays beneficial and attractive. At the same time, smaller improvements and bug fixes are required to maintain the product. How can this be done? This post shares my answer how to balance innovation and maintenance work.

Combining Lean Startup and Scrum

| June 27, 2013

Can Lean Startup and Scrum be combined? And if so, how do they fit together? This post shares my answers for blending the two models, and it maps out a high-level process for product discovery and product development.