How to become a Product Owner – 5 Simple Steps.
The Product Owner is a critical accountability in Agile and Scrum. And although the Scrum Guide doesn’t give much guidelines around great Product Ownership, the role is still absolutely necessary for great Agile and Scrum Teams.
There is a lot to do to become a great Product Owner and this role is not for the faint of heart. But if you love creating great products and services that delight your customers, read on.
Having trained, coached and mentored a number of Product Owners over the years, there is a clear trend in terms of what great Product Owners do.
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A Product Owner guides the efforts of their Scrum or Agile Teams. So Product Ownership is all about setting the right direction for valuable products. Its critical then, that you as a new Product Owner should be immersed in solid Product Ownership ideas and tools.
A Product Owner is an absolute professional at what they do. They have to be able to create the right ideas for value and be expert at communicating those ideas to the Development Team. You can’t do that if you don’t know anything about how to do that. Your goal therefore should be to be reading at least 1-2 books per month that help you get better at being a Product Owner.
Remember a great Agile Product Owner should be expert at the use of an Agile framework such as Scrum as well as being able to set direction to generate valuable products.
So there are at least two areas you need be reading about
- Scrum (or another Agile framework)
- Product Ownership
Scrum Reading List
If you’re wanting to be a capable Product Owner, you better know a lot about Product Ownership. And you better be good at Scrum. You can pick another Agile framework, but we like Scrum.
You should have a good understanding of the Scrum Framework, its Accountabilities, Events, Values, the Pillars and Artifacts. Here is a solid list of books to get you started in the right direction
