Why MANY companies will never hire a good Product Owner
The vast misconception of the Product Owner role blocks companies from finding the best candidates.
The vast misconception of the Product Owner role blocks companies from finding the best candidates.
Within the constant digital transformation, many companies need to reinvent themselves to remain competitive. Most companies strive to be fast and dynamic to benefit from the opportunities. That’s where Agile frameworks come into place. It’s common to see companies working with Scrum, Kanban, among other agile frameworks. But the question is: Do companies know which skills candidates should have?
The majority of Product Owner’ vacancies contain multiple misunderstandings about the role. Searching for the wrong skillset in candidates will dramatically reduce the chances of hiring the right person for the job.
Scrum Framework is simple to understand, hard to master. If it’s simple to understand, why do many companies have endless misconceptions about the Scrum roles?
Until companies take Scrum seriously, they will struggle to form great teams.
Are Companies Searching for the Right Skillset for Product Owners?
Organizations do not have a common perception of the Product Owner and the Scrum Master roles. Therefore, we often come across some confusing job descriptions for these roles. Ultimately people will be hired and become frustrated with mediocre results.
I analyzed five job descriptions for Product Owners, and I got scared by what I found. Let me share my thoughts with you.
Notice: I only kept the misconceptions from each job description.
1. Senior Product Owner (Game Industry)
A German company in the game industry wants a Product Owner who:
Will be in charge of a team of developers and take care of the stakeholder management
Implement a lean, high output development process and improve the quality of development
This company considers the Product Owner a manager, which is a massive misunderstanding. The Product Owner is not above of the Development Team. The Product Owner is a peer to any Scrum member.
For this position, the company expects the Product Owner to improve the quality of development. Actually, this is the Development Team’s responsibility, they should craft the DoD (Definitions of Done) which sets the standard for their work.
Also, what does high output means? For me, it seems to lead to a feature factory anti-pattern. Successful Product Owners focus on the outcome.
2. Product Owner (Game Industry)
Another German company in the game industry goes even beyond with wrong expectations for a Product Owner:
Produce, analyze, refine, and document stakeholders’ requirements and user stories to be included in the production planning.
Ensure that the Agile Team always has an adequate amount of prior prepared and prioritized tasks to work on
Collaborate with the Agile Coach (Project Manager) to run successful release planning and sprint planning sessions, as well as sprint reviews and retrospectives
When I read this position, I wondered whether it is for a Product Owner or a Business Analyst. The Product Owner should not focus on requirements. Instead, she should focus on identifying the right problem to solve.
If you apply to this role, you should provide an adequate amount of tasks to the Development Team. But Product Owners should set goals to achieve instead of tasks to implement.
This company shows another anti-pattern, since it defines the Agile Coach as the Project Manager. I wonder what kind of Agile framework they are working with, if any.
3. Product Owner Data Science
A British company in the data science sector has an output focus:
Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders who require outputs from the data science team to ensure that the requirements and deliverables are clear.
Document requirements clearly and to sufficient level detail so the data scientists and engineers can develop relevant outputs.
Produce high quality supporting documentation such as user guides and release notes to accompany the outputs delivered by the team.
Organise and prioritise the backlog, including refining user stories with the team before it is given to the BI engineer to action.
This British company also failed to understand what the Product Owner is. Beyond that, it remains with the traditional software development mindset, focused on the heavy documentation and generating output instead of outcome.
Should the Product Owner produce user guides? That’s new for me. Even after eight years of working as a Product Owner, I’ve never seen any Product Owner writing user guides.
For me, this company seems to be locked into the build trap. Another sign is to refine the user stories with a team before giving it to the BI engineer to work with. Refinement has to happen with the ones who will work on it.
4. E-commerce Product Owner
A relevant online shop in London surprised me with the following expectations for a Product Owner:
First point of contact for website technical delivery
Builds and maintains project delivery calendar, clearly communicating blockers, priority conflicts and delays
Owns relationships with developer teams and 3rd party vendors, ensuring projects are delivered on time and budget
Responsible for post-release product handover to relevant teams and all process documentation
What is this position about? Can a person be a Product Owner within such requirements? For me, it looks more like a set of Project Manager responsibilities. It is a trap to be a Product Owner in such an environment.
5. B2B Product Owner
A major Australian store chain searches for some different skillset:
Ownership of resource planning and mapping across initiatives, ensuring all resources are fully occupied.
Work closely with internal stakeholders and external partners to define milestones and ensure on-time and in-scope delivery to maximise value.
Develop business processes together with internal partners to support the initiative roadmap.
This Australian company looks for a Product Owner, but it remains with the traditional command & control mindset. A Product Owner is not responsible for making a resource planning. In the Agile World, we accept we don’t know everything upfront. We embrace change. Once we break the scope, we celebrate because we have learned more.
If you want to be a Product Owner, you should know what awaits for you.
Do You Want to be a Product Owner? You Better Know What Awaits!
Understand what is not said about being a Product Owner.medium.com
What Not to Expect from Product Owners?
As you can see, companies continually search for the wrong skill set to fulfill Product Owners positions. Unfortunately, the end of this story is sad. Such companies will fail to thrive with Scrum. People will become frustrated, and they will crucify the Scrum framework.
Until companies have an agile mindset, Scrum teams will never reach their true potential.
I wish companies could understand what is NOT to be a Product Owner:
We are not requirement keepers; we are value maximizers.
We do not plan resources; we set goals to achieve.
We do not care about scope; we care about learning.
We do not manage developers; we are servant-leaders to them.
We do not focus on output; we focus on the outcome.
Some time ago, I wrote an article about why many Product Owners fail. Today, I believe a lot of companies lead many Product Owners to mediocrity due to the misconceptions of what is a Product Owner.
Why do many Product Owners fail?
The 4 misunderstandings that will ensure you’ll fail as a Product Ownermedium.com
Endnote
Being a Product Owner is a daunting task. We have many challenges to overcome every single day. I hope one day, companies will understand what is to be a Product Owner. Then we might have a proper environment that allows us to thrive as Product Owners. It would be at least one less challenge to overcome.
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