The Art of Agile Product Ownership: A Guide for Product Managers, Business Analysts, and Entrepreneurs

Product Information

Specifically, you can take the time to develop and bring to the table an outside-in, market-centric perspective that is so compelling and so well informed that it can counterbalance the inside-out company-centric orientation of last year’s operating plan. Author Allan Kelly, who delivers Agile training courses to major companies, pulls from his experience to help you discover what it takes to be a successful product owner. You will learn how you need to define your role within a team and how you can best incorporate ownership with strategy. With the Agile method, time is the key factor, and after using the lessons from this book you will confidently be able to synthesize features, functionality, and scope against delivery. You will find out how other team members such as the UX designer and business analyst can support and enhance your role as product owner, and how every type of company structure can adapt for optimal agility. Build whole product solutions – Design whole product solutions for the user’s needs, ensuring that the initial and long-term user experiences are optimal and evolve as needed. Platform team – organized around the development and support of platforms that provide services to other teams.

Product Management is responsible for coordinating and bringing new solutions to market while ensuring the ongoing success of existing products. Design Thinking While releasing on demand is a goal of the CDP, gaining the competency to reliably and skillfully release value whenever desired is hard work. It involves embracing the DevOps mindset and culture and creating an increasingly automated pipeline.Figure 2 shows the core processes of design thinking, illustrated as a double diamond. This process focuses on thoroughly exploring the problem space before creating solutions. Similarly, the overview of the a product owner’s potential responsibilities frames the discussion about what really happens. These icons can also be used to visualize the likely interactions between the teams through their relative positioning. The names of the specific teams can then be added to these icons for a complete picture. Visualizing the teams on the ART in this manner helps to compare and contrast the merits of competing designs and also provides an indication of how well any particular design is aligned to the flow of value. Figure 5. Applying team topologies to Agile teams on an ART Critical ART Roles Identify market rhythms and events – Market rhythms are predictable, often seasonal, patterns in supply and demand that inform periodic release schedules. Market events, such as regulatory changes, patent expirations, and releases from competitors, occur more sporadically and require Product Management to plan for dynamic, out-of-cycle releases. As a member of the extended Product Management function, the PO is the team’s primary customer advocate and primary link to business and technology strategy. This enables the team to balance the needs of multiple stakeholders while continuously evolving the Solution. Details

The organization of an ART determines who will plan and work together, as well as what products, services, features, or components the train will deliver. Organizing ARTs is part of the ‘art’ of SAFe. This process is covered extensively in the Implementation Roadmap article series, particularly in ‘ Identify Value Streams and ARTs‘ and ‘ Create the Implementation Plan.’

Cadence and Synchronization

Measure describes the practices to quantify if the newly-released functionality provides the intended value The role scales with the complexity of the Solution. For some solutions, the Product Management function may be carried out by a single Product Manager. For others, a team of Product Managers may be required. Details Customer centricity and design thinking comprise the first dimension of APD. This mindset and way of doing business put the customer first, at the enterprise’s core, to provide positive customer experiences and build long-term relationships. Customer Centricity Malviya, Kartik. Lean UX versus Design Thinking. Medium, November 11, 2020. Retrieved October 11, 2023, from https://uxplanet.org/lean-ux-versus-design-thinking-3f9ebb8aef59 Think and feel like the customer – Apply empathy and strive to see the world from their customers’ point of view.

The PO is ultimately responsible for maximizing the value delivered by the Agile team, which requires the PO to ensure that the right solutions are built and that they are built the right way. However, the PO cannot accomplish this alone. The schedule is fixed – The train departs the station on a known, reliable schedule, as determined by the chosen Program Increment (PI) cadence. If a Feature misses a timed departure and does not get planned into the current PI, it can catch the next one. The parameters and boundaries of the ART, its stakeholders, and its relationship to the value streams can be captured and summarized in the ‘ART canvas’ (Figure 6). Team Flow– This represents the state in which Agile Teams deliver a continuous flow of customer value. The SAFe Team and Technical Agility (TTA) competency offers practices for creating effective cross-functional Agile Teams and ARTs. It fosters applying built-in quality practices and collaborating with extended stakeholders to deliver solutions faster.Create customer lifetime value – Move beyond a transactional mentality and focus on the overall customer relationship over the solution’s life.

Each of these areas of responsibility is described in the sections below. Connecting with the Customer Wake, Bill. INVEST in Good Stories, and SMART Tasks. XP123, August 17, 2003. Retrieved October 12, 2023, from https://xp123.com/articles/invest-in-good-stories-and-smart-tasks/ Figure 9. Continuous Exploration, Continuous Integration, and Continuous Deployment are continuous, concurrent, and supported by DevOps capabilities Align strategy to business objectives– Product Management is responsible for aligning the product strategy, vision, and roadmap to the portfolio’s Strategic Themes and for maintaining alignment with the Portfolio Vision, Lean Budgets, Guardrails, and, when necessary, the solution vision. When assuming the role of Epic Owner, a Product Manager also defines and governs the epic’s Lean Business Case. Design Thinking is integral to customer centricity. It’s an iterative development process that ensures solutions are desired by customers and users while also ensuring the solution is feasible, economically viable, and sustainable throughout its lifecycle.Align on outcomes – Product Management ensures that solutions deliver tangible business value. They collaborate directly with Customers, Business Owners, and, when appropriate, Solution Management to understand the market forces, desired economic outcomes, and broader solution vision influencing product strategy. Moore, Geoffrey A. Escape Velocity: Free Your Company’s Future from the Pull of the Past. Harper Business, 2011. Face-to-face PI Planning – The ART plans its work at periodic, mostly face-to-face PI Planning events. Establish equitable value exchange models– Following SAFe principle #1 – Take an economic view, Product Management identifies the specific value desired by customers from a solution in addition to the value the enterprise requires in return. An equitable exchange of value between the enterprise and its customers ensures solutions provide mutual, sustainable benefits.