How to Succeed as a Proxy Product Owner
Three attitudes to increase your odds of being successful in the agency world
Three attitudes to increase your odds of being successful in the agency world
Being a Product Owner has many flavors. Your accountability level varies dramatically depending on your scenario. At some companies, you are empowered to make decisions; in others, you have little decision power and need to run your ideas by others for approval. The challenge is knowing how to succeed in your specific scenario regardless of the constraints you face.
I consider myself lucky because I’ve worn the Product Owner hat in many contexts, from start-ups to large corporations, from component teams to empowered ones. For me, the most challenging situation is being a Proxy Product Owner.
The further you are from end-users, the more difficult it becomes to deliver value.
I want to share three crucial attitudes that increase your chances of success once you are a Proxy Product Owner. Hopefully, you can get valuable insights from the reading.
What Is a Proxy Product Owner?
Before I share how to succeed as a Proxy Product Owner, let’s understand what a Proxy Product Owner means.
The Proxy Product Owner, in short, is a diluted version of the Product Owner role. A Proxy Product Owner is a representative of people making decisions about the product, and the person in this role usually performs the following tasks:
Gather requirements
Manage the Product Backlog; content, and ordering
Set Sprint Goals, be part of the Scrum Team during Sprints
Organize product releases with the Scrum Team
The Proxy Product Owner is responsible solely for the tactical tasks. This is a limiting factor for the role because strategic activities are out of range. The following is often done by the ones represented by the Proxy Product Owner:
Product Vision
Product Strategy
Budget
Prioritization
Given all these limitations, can anyone deliver value as a Proxy Product Owner? I am sure it’s possible, but you’ve got to be careful not to become one of the following misunderstood stances of the Product Owner:
Clerk: a person who servers the stakeholders, no more than that. This version is like a waiter; you get a request, write it down, and pass it over to developers. The problem is that what stakeholders want may not be what the end-users need.
Story Writer: all the matters is putting more and more User Stories into the Product Backlog. Once an item goes in, it stays there forever as nobody dares to remove it from the Product Backlog.
Output Maximizer: delivering more features is all that matters. Producing value is overlooked.
In summary, the Proxy Product Owner is a limited version of a Scrum Product Owner. Now let’s explore what you could do to ensure value once you are a Proxy Product Owner.
#1 — Focus on Building Trust
Digital Agencies and consultancies are familiar places for Proxy Product Owners, yet the nature of the business makes it challenging to succeed in your role. Many times clients either hire an agency to extend their capabilities, speed up, or shift risks. Often, that leads to a waterfall situation because clients want to know what they get for the money they pay.
Imagine a redesign project of a service offering; it’s complex and unpredictable. As a Product Owner, you can’t know at the beginning which features will be part of that and how long it will take. Yet, clients insist on predictability as they want to minimize the risks on their end. Trust is fundamental for you to solve this puzzle.
How can you build trust with your clients? An essential aspect is being a partner of your clients instead of a mere representative. You should strive to help them make progress in their challenges. Therefore, it’s vital to position yourself as someone who enables them to advance instead of just receiving orders and converting them into the Product Backlog Items.
The lack of decision power is one of the most limiting factors of a Proxy Product Owner, yet you can use that to build trust. Once you accept that the client is the person with the decision power, you should bring them options and consequences for each of them. You position yourself as a product specialist and provide meaningful consultancy. That helps the client find the right trade-offs to make and consequently increases the trust level.
#2 — Meet the Clients Where They Are
A common trap as a Proxy Product Owner is trying to push your aspirations to the client world. The agency environment is dynamic; it brings many perspectives from different products and services. However, you should first learn to empathize with your clients instead of convincing them on what makes sense.
Until you can walk a mile in your client's shoes, you cannot advise how to solve their challenges.
Clients are frustrated once their expectations are ignored. If the client wants a Fiat 500, don’t try to deliver a Ferrari. As a Proxy Product Owner, you should strive to understand the client's needs and create meaningful solutions.
You may meet your clients a step ahead and help them progress faster. That’s fine. But don’t try to meet them a kilometer ahead; that will only generate confusion and frustration.
#3 — Master the Art of Saying No
For me, great Proxy Product Owners know when and how to say no. If you struggle to say no, delivering on your expectations can become impossible.
When you work as a Proxy Product Owner, you know you lack the decision power, but that doesn’t mean you have to say yes to everything. You create false expectations, reduce team productivity, and ultimately deliver a little bit of everything and nothing impactful by saying yes to everything.
Saying no is tricky because it can easily lead to conflicts. Yet, if you have the right ingredients, you can do it. Here is how you can do it:
Define a goal to pursue: regardless of your scenario, a common goal is what transforms a group of people into a team. That’s why you’ve got to define which goal you will pursue. That can be a Product Vision, Product Goal, or Objective Key Result.
Ensure understanding: once you know your goal, everyone involved in the product should understand the motivation and importance. It’s your responsibility to make that happen.
Focus on the goal: everything the Scrum Team does should have a connection with the agreed goal. If something pops up and doesn’t contribute to the goal, it’s your chance of practicing saying no. It may generate a conflict, but you can solve that by pointing out the agreed goal and its importance.
I think that we often end up in discussions about what we should do to improve our product. For me, it’s equally important agreeing on what we will not do during the upcoming months.
You Can Rock as a Proxy Product Owner
I know that being a Proxy doesn’t bring the charm of having the ultimate responsibility for the product. It’s indeed a sub-optimal Product Owner position as you lack the decision power and have little or no involvement in the strategy. Yet, you can do a great job in this role and lead teams to create valuable products.
I learned that complaining about a situation doesn’t lead to anything other than demotivation. But when we search for actions to change what is inside our control, we can be surprised by the opportunities we identify.
Even as a Proxy Product Owner, you can massively contribute to delivering value. It’s up to you how you play the role.
Accept you don’t own decisions, and then ensure the ones who can make decisions have all information they need and know the consequences of each possibility.
Accept you don’t own the product but do your best to make that a success. Once you bring solid product management skills to the party, you increase your chances of excellent results.
Each yes you say brings you a new responsibility and a possible distraction to the team. Ensure the Scrum Team can focus on reaching a goal at a time. Knowing how and when to say no will make your life easier.
