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by Simon Baker.
Original Post: Product Owner and business marksmanship
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Being an effective Product Owner is a full-time job and managing the Product Backlog is a constant activity. It's not as trivial as it might sound.
The Product Owner is responsible for the features that are delivered. The team is responsible for the quality delivered. It's the Product Owner's responsibility to maximise the return on investment in every release and every iteration. The Product Owner needs to look after the Product Backlog because their decisions and actions govern the flow of value to the customers by effectively steering the efforts of the team. And to compete on the basis of speed a continuous flow of valuable features to the customers must be sustained.
Managing the Product Backlog, which is a dynamic list of evolving user stories, is often dismissed as simply routine with insufficient time and attention dedicated to the activity. Consequently focus is lost resulting in a divergence from the project vision, the coherence of the backlog dissipates, prioritisation becomes based on fancy rather than on feedback, return on investment diminishes, the team stalls and is unable to sustain creation of value at a steady velocity, and ultimately the customers become dissatisfied because they're not receiving the features they deem to be valuable.
Managing the Product Backlog requires constant care and attention. It requires diligence, discipline, awareness and business acumen, and decisiveness. It takes business marksmanship to realise the vision for the product by hitting each goal in turn and generating the biggest bang for the buck.
Before shooting, a sniper will first assess a number of criteria - distance and elevation, weather conditions, etc - while constantly surveying his surroundings. In a similar fashion, the Product Owner has to be aware of a number of factors making up the goal - value, cost, risk, priority, etc - while keeping an eye on the big picture. The difference is the Product Owner has many opportunities to assess and re-aim en route. It's fire and aim, aim again, and keep re-aiming until you hit the target. First fire in the general direction of the vision. Then repeatedly re-aim at goals that move you towards that vision, iteration by iteration, all the while keeping an eye on the big picture just in case the vision changes in response to the market, competitors, or modified business objectives.
The Product Owner must be continuously engaged with the team, collaborating and providing feedback as user stories are being developed, and he must be prepared to accept or reject the features delivered at the iteration review. The Product Owner must always be looking ahead to coming iterations and beyond, and planning adaptively to evolve goals and evolve the user stories that satisfy them. To be able to look ahead with sufficient clarity, the Product Owner needs to engage, on a regular basis, with the sponsor, key stakeholders, and other executives to preserve strategic direction and maintain visibility. This involves a demonstration of the goals achieved together with an appraisal of the quantified value delivered per investment period (iteration or release), and discussing coming goals, while obtaining feedback, to ensure alignment with the vision and business objectives. In effect, the Product Owner is empowered to pursue the strategic vision by defining and then steering by tactical iteration goals.
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