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Product Owner And Product Manager, Brothers In Arms

A lot of words have been spoken, written or recorded about the role of Product Owner (PO). So many that it’s hard to imagine that there is an empty spot for a new word or thought. However, when I interview people for the PO position more often than not, I’m faced with solid knowledge of Scrum roles, artefacts and ceremonies, skills in Jira or other tools, but very limited to none experience in product creation and management.

Is that how things should be?
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Agilni pristup – neophodan uslov digitalne transformacije

Here is a link to the article from November 2018 that I wrote for a Montenegrin organization for education on digital transformation, DigitalOn.

In this article I discuss what is a Digital Transformation, and what is the essential difference between Agile and traditional approach in product delivery.

The original article is in local language. For English version please click here.

Click here to read the whole article.

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Product Owner, role and prejudice – Part 2

Click here for the whole article.

Here’s a blog post from October 2018 that I wrote for the Agile Serbia blog about the role of Product Owner (PO) in Scrum.

In the second part of this blog post, I analyze different types of Product Owners and the ways how to help them evolve into a full-fledged, independent PO.

With it, most common challenges that Product Owners meet in their job are given here, together with ideas how to overcome them.

At the end I give my perspective on where in the organizational structure should a PO role sit.

Enjoy reading!

Click here for the whole article.

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Why are managers there at all?

Just recently my colleague and friend Zoran Vujkov has drawn my attention to the following clip discussing trends in adoption of agile in large companies. I recommend the clip for watching if you already haven’t.

Among a lot of information about the speed of agile adoption and critical factors for it, one thing caught my eye – importance of executive sponsorship.
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People you choose make a difference to your digital transformation

I’ve, recently, had the opportunity of listening to Lazar Džamić talking about digital transformation. Talking about changing companies from a traditional into a digital company, he said that people often ask him how to transform their companies to become like Google. The answer to them is: you start from the beginning and act like Google, or start hiring people in a way the Google does it.
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Introducing Agile Into Corporation, Part 1

Introducing any kind of change into humans’ lives doesn’t come easy. Introducing agile into corporation is even harder.

There are at least two reasons for this, first inertia. People like to use patterns in their jobs and in their lives. Patterns minimize stress and make people feel secure. Introducing any change, on the other hand, involves insecurity and requires at least some level of engagement.

Second reason why introducing agile is hard is that it’s not immanent to corporation behavior. Traditional corporations are used to work in an environment with low level of uncertainty (market is familiar, products are familiar, processes are familiar). In such an environment they are more oriented towards efficiency increase and resource utilization, than to innovation and agility. Imposing agile way of work to such organization certainly comes with a lot of resistance, reluctance and disbelief.
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Why Is It So Hard To Introduce Experimenting?

When I’m listening to people discussing over experimenting in a corporation, I hear similar dilemmas:

  • Is 5-6 people you interview enough to bring decision?
  • If we prove only one concept through testing with users is that enough to conclude that this concept is the best. Maybe there are some other concept that are better?
  • How do we make sure that once we launch the product to the market that it will be successful?
  • And so on

These are all very relevant and natural questions, but I would say they all come from one source – the project management mind set.
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