Rated as the No.1 emerging job in product development by the World Economic Forum, a product owner’s role is one of those job profiles that is both satisfying and rewarding. Every day, there are hundreds of listings for product owner jobs, most offering attractive remunerations. If you wish to see yourself as a Product Owner, managing businesses and stakeholders, motivating teams, and engaging in Scrum processes and practices, then you must have the top product owner skills that organizations look for. Go for Certified Scrum Product Owner training and maximize business value.
While the interpretation of a Product Owner’s role varies between companies, it is always agreed that it is the Product Owner who creates and maintains the product vision and chalks out the product roadmap. In accordance with the schedules set, he or she plans releases, prioritizes tasks, and grooms the Product Backlog. All this is done while stringently following Scrum processes and attending all Scrum meetings.
“The people who are best suited to the role thrive on accountability, visibility, and the art of negotiation”—Scrum Alliance
While you may think that these are qualities needed to perform any job role, delve deeper and you will understand why these are so important to be successful as a Product Owner. Most experts would agree that there are eight qualities that differentiate exceptional product owners from the mundane. To know more about the roles and responsibilities of a product owner, check out CSPO classes online.
Your skills as a Product Owner need to go beyond just complying with everything that the customer says. You should have the skill to look beyond what they are requesting, and present them with possibilities that they haven’t even thought of. Everyone likes to have more, and giving your customers more will keep them happy.
A product owner has to work with many different groups of people. They have to liaise with multiple teams, developers, customers, stakeholders, and other product owners and make sure that there is alignment with respect to time, budgets, and requirements. The skill to collaborate is essential for a product owner working on critical projects.
As a product owner, you have a lot to deal with. Unreasonable customers with difficult requirements, or a team that is sensitive and unwilling to work with the customer or even stakeholders who are at loggerheads. A skill that will help you in these difficult situations is that conflict resolution. Having the ability to dissolve disagreements and act as a mediator or negotiator will come in handy to diffuse any animosity that may arise with or between stakeholders and development team members.
As a Product Owner, you will mostly lead Agile projects. You will also be required to guide your team and help them understand the requirements and what is expected of them. While the Product Owner need not have a technical background, he or she should have sufficient domain knowledge, and should certainly have agile and scrum skills. This skill is essential in order to help team members follow the right processes at the time of product development. Though one would argue that this is a core responsibility of a Scrum Master, Product Owners without this skill can be ineffective.
You may be used to juggling a number of responsibilities and may be an excellent multitasker—but knowing when and what to delegate is a skill that you must learn. This will make your life much simpler and give you time to focus on strategic product management tasks that need your attention.
Facilitating dialogue is another skill that most successful Product Owners have mastered. Your role is not merely to relay messages from stakeholders to the development team and back, but rather to facilitate the conversation and decision-making, thus empowering the team and aiding transparency.
A major part of your job is to convey the product vision to the development team and conversely let the stakeholders know how far the development team has reached in the product development cycle. This all-important skill helps you motivate team members, keep stakeholders happy and also garner the support of senior management by effectively conveying your product features and implementations.
What’s the one thing, as a product owner, you need to do really well? That’s right! Manage the product backlog. Prioritization may be underrated, but it’s a skill that you must cultivate in order to be a successful product owner.
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While the debate on whether a product owner should have sound technical skills or not has been raging ever since the creation of this role, one thing that most experts and product owners themselves agree on is that they must possess at least basic knowledge of technical core concepts. These would include:
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So, what are the qualities that you need to have, to be successful in your career and be a well-respected product owner?
Although the product owner is often a single person and not a group of persons, you are still part of the Scrum team. This is important for you to understand so that you can build trust and a solid partnership with the rest of the Scrum team.
A good product owner is always present, and this also includes attending sprint sessions. This will help you understand where the product development is going and clarify doubts.
As a product owner you would want to know what is being delivered and if it’s being delivered according to customer expectations and what you promised to the customer. And how do you do that? By attending Sprint demos. A good product owner will attend every sprint demo and support the team during these releases.
A good product owner takes care, not just of the customers, but also of the team. You are empowered to motivate and guide the team and aid the Scrum Master in ensuring that they are able to do their job in an unrestrained manner.
While you may desire to be the perfect Product Owner who embodies all these skills, you must realize that you have certain strengths and weaknesses. Your strengths are your ability to:
A good Product Owner is a boon, not just for the development team, but also for the organization. Nobody is born with leadership or product owner skills, but these are capabilities that you can nurture and cultivate. With these skills, you can lead your project, lead your team and overcome all adversities to deliver value and exceptional products. Want to secure a job as a Scrum Owner? Enroll in KnowledgeHut CSPO classes online training.
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